I love it when I tweak a recipe and it turns out great. Yesterday, we had a picnic with the people I work with at the library, and I decided to bake blueberry muffins to take along. I had all the ingredients on hand except eggs. The recipe called for one egg, and we had zero. So I decided to mash a banana and see if that would work. The muffins turned out great, and disappeared quickly.
Today, we had a family gathering in preparation for my husband’s cousin’s wedding tomorrow. The blueberry muffins yesterday had been such a hit that I decided to bake another batch to take along today. I started getting out the various ingredients, and discovered that not only did we still not have any eggs, we were also out of bananas. So I dug through the fruit bowl and found a large ripe plum. Into the blender it went, and I added pureed plum to my muffin batter. I have to say, they were even better than the batch I made with the banana.
So if you’re making muffins and you are out of eggs or eating vegan, add some sort of mashed fruit and it will probably turn out great. Applesauce would have worked, but we didn’t have any, and were also out of apples (can you tell I need to go to the store?). I experiment with recipes all the time, and I rarely have all the ingredients on hand. But with baking, it’s a little tougher, since the wet/dry ratio is pretty important. I’ve found that I can always use less sugar than a recipe calls for and have it turn out fine (not a huge amount less, but if it calls for 3/4 cup, I’ll just use 1/2, etc.), and now I know that muffins without eggs are fine too.
I’ve found that trips to the store for just one thing usually end up being more expensive than I planned, because I invariably see other things while I’m there. So if I can eliminate a trip to the store just to pick up eggs or whatever recipe item I’m missing, I figure I’m ahead of the game. Using up something I already have on hand is faster, easier, and cheaper. And those muffins were darn good.
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