Muffin Mayhem

This week I started baking again since the temperatures have dropped and you can now turn the oven on without turning your house into a sauna. On Monday Lana and I dropped Kyle off at school and went shopping for ingredients to make some pumpkin muffins. I love the ability to shop with one child at a time; it just makes the trips so easy. I don’t have to referee and the kids don’t have to talk over one another trying to get my attention. Sure I might look like the crazy mom, because I have to stay in the 4 yr olds conversation or screaming will invoke, but you do what you have to. So if you see me in the store shooting bad guys as I turn down the aisle or doing a ballerina twirl just smile and know that yes I am being made a fool of by my 4 yr old and I’m ok with that.

So we gathered all our shopping bags and headed home where we found quite a few messages on the answering machine. The most important message being from Lana’s friend down the street who wanted her to come over and play. I was really excited for the opportunity to bake by myself. I know it’s great to bake with kids and it teaches them a lot, but every now and then I like the satisfaction of breaking the egg and knowing there will be no eggshell in the batter. I whisked Lana away to her friend’s house and started mixing all the ingredients. I was having a great time and was able to clean as I went. Then I got to the part where you fill the muffin tins which went smoothly…until I went to put them in the oven. These muffins were really hardy and weighted the muffin tin down quite a bit which I was not expecting when I placed them in the oven. PLOP went the muffins upside down on the oven door, which was preheated of course so they sizzled on the door as they dripped down the crack in the bottom of the door and into the drawer below the oven. The muffin tin was very well greased as there were hardly any remnants of batter as I picked the tin up. Cleaning a hot oven was not fun at all, but it had to be done unless I wanted the smell of burnt muffins to fill the air. Then I started cleaning all the sheet pans that got glopped on that were in the oven drawer. Then finally I started cleaning the oven drawer, which I don’t think I have ever done before and I really should have because it was very dusty. Well after cleaning I filled the tins again with what batter I had left over and deposited them into the oven very carefully. Then I continued to clean up the muffin mess off the floor and kitchen rug. Soon enough I smelled the pumkiny muffins emanating from the oven and I knew it was time for a taste test. They passed, I don’t know if they were worth all the trouble they caused, but they were very good.

Yesterday I got the baking bug again, this time my goal was to make a healthy muffin the kids could eat for breakfast in the mornings. It dawned on me one day that maybe my kid’s activity level is due to breakfasts full of sugar such as: eggos, toaster strudels, and the many different kid cereals in the cabinets. So I found a recipe for blueberry bran muffins that seemed to fit the bill. Making and baking them was much less dramatic then the pumpkin ones, the drama came after they were baked. All day I had a headache and none of my usual tricks made it go away. After the muffins came out of the oven everyone grabbed one and ate it. It was pretty good for a healthy muffin, not as tasty as the pumpkin ones but that’s to be expected. After I baked the last batch I went to lie down to see if I could get rid of my headache. A few minutes later I’m in the bathroom vomiting. How nice, I’m throwing up my own baking, that should say a lot about my baking huh. Well, it was the headache that actually caused the vomiting, it’s not the first time it has happened, but I can’t bring myself to eat another blueberry bran muffin. Luckily Kyle and Ronnie are eating them, because I’m getting tired of seeing them. Lana is doing her part to dispose of them too by crumbling them up and sprinkling them on the area rug in the living room. Don’t ask me why, I have no clue.