TWD: Great Grains Muffins

In trying to articulate my feelings about the Great Grains Muffins for this week's TWD recipe, I decided that it would be easiest to explain with a visual aid.*

If you will please refer to the above figure, it is evident that my enjoyment of a food increases proportionally to the degree to which said food resembles dessert.

In making these calculations, there are a few additional considerations. Extra weight is given for the presence of a) frosting b) chocolate ganache and c) whipped cream. Points are deducted for a) pastry cream b) excessive meringue and c) booze.

Now then. Given that my sweet tooth is the boss of me, and given that these muffins tasted fairly healthy-ish, it is safe to say that there were not my new favorite thing. Don't get me wrong--they weren't bad at all. In fact, Jason really liked them. (But that makes sense, since he's the MC Skat Kat to my Paula Abdul.)

For a healthy muffin, these performed admirably. I used whole wheat flour, spelt flour, oats, and cornmeal, and will all of that, they still stayed nice and moist for days. I tried to jazz them up with dried apricots, pistachios, and bittersweet chocolate, but I still found myself picking out the clumps of chocolate and chunks of fruit and leaving the rest of the muffin sitting around all morning.

None of this is the muffin's fault. Remember those Costco superpacks of muffins? I was the girl who always made a beeline to the double-chocolate muffins, which we all know are basically unfrosted cupcakes on steroids. I cannot be trusted to define what constitutes a delicious muffin.

So yes--these can stay earmarked as "treats to make for other people who value healthy baked goods," but as for me--I'm counting down the days until we make bread pudding (!!) next week(!!!)


*This super-scientific graph is brought to you by every single liberal arts class I took in pursuit of my English & American Studies degrees. Who says the humanities are useless?