Whole wheat banana wheat germ muffins with chocolate chips

A month or two ago, I bought a fresh bag of wheat germ to make these blueberry-banana muffins for my husband.  He really enjoys a good breakfast muffin every so often!  I won't say I was left holding the bag but I did wonder what else I could do with all the leftover wheat germ since I hate to waste and always have this burning desire to make use of everything (at least, before their expiration date). I got lucky and spotted this whole wheat banana wheat germ muffin recipe that really caught my eye.

These muffins are made with whole wheat flour and wheat germ, sweetened with honey.  Chocolate chips (somewhat) optional.

It helped that the muffins I spotted were beautiful (with puffy domed tops that I was not able to achieve likely due to my over-zealousness when it comes to adding bananas) and had a Nutella swirl on top to boot (as you can see, I opted for miniature chocolate chips).  The other major selling point was how wholesome these muffins are...dare I say these actually qualify as healthy muffins?

When I say "healthy", I mean they are made with whole wheat flour (I like to use white whole wheat) and wheat germ.  That's it - no other flours.  Aside from the bananas, they are simply sweetened with honey.  There's a bit of canola oil involved, and I opted to include some chocolate chips just to make sure I wasn't being too virtuous.

I can be a little too generous with my banana measurement...my muffins were super moist

I was a little skeptical about the whole wheat flour-wheat germ combo going in but I couldn't resist such a potentially great use of my bag of wheat germ.  And you know what?  These are some good muffins!  They turned out flavorful and very moist - all the more so since I was a little heavy-handed with the mashed bananas.  Though that meant I ended up with rather sunken muffin tops, you won't find us complaining about too much moisture in a muffin!

My husband enjoyed these and even the picky 8-year old was a fan, and he can be rather picky about his banana muffins!  I'm glad he liked these because they are far less sweet and much healthier than his favorite banana muffins.  I would be happy to make these often and feel good about having them for a quick breakfast.  I hope you give it a try if you're a fan of muffins or if, like me, you find yourself with some wheat germ on hand that you need a good use for!

Chocolate chip shortbread cookies

Making and tasting these shortbread cookies reminded me that classics, and simple things, are often the best.  Sometimes, I could use a little reminder like that.  If I didn't fully appreciate the goodness of the simple shortbread cookie before, I am fully aware now.

I didn't make these shortbread cookies because I was craving it.  It came about because I was putting together a little care package for a friend and thinking of treats with a good shelf-life that would be conducive to shipping. With all the snow storms coming and going, I didn't know how long my package would be in transit.  Shortbread seemed to pop up as a universal answer.

This is very simply: butter, confectioners' sugar, flour, vanilla extract, and miniature chocolate chips. The result is a shortbread with a signature sandy and crumbly texture.  But while it's crisp on the outside, these cookies are soft on the inside.  The confectioners' sugar somehow lends a melt-in-your-mouth kind of tender texture (the magic of cornstarch) that leaves you wanting a few more bites.  That's the impact it had on us.

This is Dorie Greenspan's espresso-chocolate shortbread recipe, minus the espresso.  It made me think about what you can add to, and the spins you can take with the classic shortbread.  But ironically enough - as I was tasting these cookies, I almost wish I'd made plain ones.  The plain base is that good (and that's saying a lot because you know how much I love chocolate).

After the storm...Double-chocolate muffins with mini chocolate chips

I might always think of these as my post-Hurricane Sandy muffins because they were the first thing I baked after our power was restored.  When the lights came back on, I was thrilled at the thought of using my oven again.  It sounds silly because I know there were and are far greater things to worry about than having a functional oven but it brought a little extra comfort to me in my little world.  I think we all want to feel useful and being able to cook and bake for my family gives me that feeling.  At the same time, the repetitiveness of cooking and baking is a great stress reliever, with an added bonus of a tasty reward at the end.  And speaking of stress relief, is there any better medicine than chocolate for the job?

Being mindful of conserving power, I baked these double chocolate muffins, which only take about 15 minutes in the oven.  I whipped up a small batch, just a half dozen (partly given limited resources at home – it was much too soon to venture out for groceries when much of the neighborhood was still without power), early the next morning after our power was restored and before my husband went off to work at a nearby office temporarily.  It felt good to be able to offer him something homemade before he took off to see what our world looked like post Sandy.

I found the recipe for these muffins a few weeks ago in a special Chocolate issue/magazine published by Better Homes and Gardens.  I’ve been on the lookout for a good chocolate muffin recipe because it satisfies my continuous craving for chocolate cake without the guilt of over-indulgence (no frosting and less sweet).  My last attempt at chocolate muffins was disappointing but these looked and sounded good – in particular, I like the use of oil as opposed to butter for a generally moister cake.

And I was very pleasantly surprised by these muffins!  It may have had something to do with the relief and joy I felt from having power again but I really like them and plan to make these from time to time.  They are moist (though not my favorite chocolate cake type moist but remember these are muffins, not cupcakes) and tender, and the use of mini chocolate chips really works here.  The chocolate flavor of the muffin itself comes from cocoa powder while the small chocolate chips blend throughout the muffin and provide a noticeable presence of actual chocolate in each bite.  In other words, they satisfy my chocolate craving.

I tweaked the recipe just a bit, adding some vanilla extract which was oddly missing, and I’m happy I reserved some of the mini chocolate chips to scatter on top of the muffins right before baking.  I like seeing the little chocolate studs on the surface, reinforcing the all-important presence of chocolate and giving a clear idea of what’s involved.  I’ve been experimenting with whole wheat pastry flour lately, and used a mixture of that and regular all-purpose with good results (i.e., unnoticeable taste difference as long as you keep the whole wheat pastry flour at no more than 50%).

I liked these so much, I made a second, full batch, a few days later!  The excuse was my brother and his family was staying with us part-time as their house remained dark after the storm and I thought we needed more breakfast/snack provisions.  I’ve discovered that when housebound with little to do and few places to go (scarcity of gasoline at the pump being one major issue), we need plenty of food and something to go with all those cups of java.

Interestingly, I almost like the flavor of these better the next day.  They may be a tad dryer versus fresh (I recommend re-warming them in the microwave for about 10 seconds just before eating like I do) but I think the flavors blended together and the whole wheat pastry flour (if you’re using) mellowed to the point of being totally indiscernible even when I experimented with using a bit more in my second batch.  I upped the ratio to 60% WW pastry flour and I could taste the whole wheat in that second fresh batch; the next day, however, it was not discernible at all.

Now the other good news is the lights came back on for my brother and his family (including my 3 young nephews) late that afternoon after I whipped up the second batch of these.  The way I figure it, they must be good luck!

Payard's flourless chocolate cookies - 2 ways

On one of our recent excursions into NYC, we stopped by Payard Bakery for some requisite macarons and a few other sweet treats.  Incidentally, we tried one of their savory sandwiches and it was quite tasty.  Anyway...the visit got me looking up some of Francois Payard's recipes and it brought me to these flourless chocolate cookies that have been fairly widely touted.  I thought it would be fun to give them a try for myself.  I think this is a good time to highlight flourless treats with Passover coming up but these are some pretty special flourless cookies to try for no reason at all.

Payard's recipe is flourless chocolate-walnut cookies.  Some people commend them for being low-fat since there's actually no chocolate (just cocoa powder) in them and only egg whites are used to bind them.  What fat you do find in them is the good stuff, coming from the walnuts.  But you won't find me insinuating they're some sort of "health food" because there's plenty of sugar in the mix.  But the amazing thing about these cookies is their texture.  Somehow, they manage to be moist, fudgy, and chewy (yes, chocolaty too) without the actual chocolate, butter, or egg yolks.  They really do taste and look like brownies in cookie form!  The other thing about these cookies is they are very easy to make.  I mixed the batter in a large bowl, by hand, in a matter of minutes. 

When I made these, I wondered if my little guy would like them.  The little one loves a chocolate cookie or brownie but he still insists he doesn't like walnuts (or other chunks of nuts in his desserts - long story, but that's not really true).  So I offhandedly fed him a bite to test the waters and when he almost took my fingers off trying to inhale as big a mouthful as he could, I knew he was into them.  He quickly scarfed one down and requested more, even acknowledging they were good with the walnuts. 

These were so interesting that I decided to make another batch a few days later and play with the mix-in.  I threw the "no actual chocolate in this recipe" mantra out the window and added some mini chocolate chips and a little bit of cocoa nibs in place of the walnuts.  The result?  They were good but in a side by side comparison, we clearly preferred the original toasted walnut version more (not surprisingly, the pros know what they're doing).  The chocolate chips are tasty but made the cookies sweeter than I liked.  The cocoa nibs added a certain level of smokiness to the cookies without the sweetness so perhaps it may be worthwhile to try what Molly at Orangette did and make a walnut-cocoa nibs version.  But I think I'll stick with the original.