As if I weren't busy enough with the craziness that is the end-of-the-semester, I baked 7 dozen muffins in the past two weeks for various potlucks and appreciation gifts to friends, teachers, colleagues, and housemates. Once upon a time, I baked with more frequency. Like every weekend. This was when I lived in Portland, OR and my life was, in many ways, simpler. And the moody, grey winters long.
Before
Recently the spring/summer weather in SF has been reminiscent of my Pacific NW winters past. In other words, conducive for warming up the kitchen, belly, and spirit with oven-baked goodness. It was nice to flex my baking muscles again. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. I made pumpkin spice muffins, lemon olive oil muffins, and sweet potato muffins from recipes I found online. All vegan. I always play with the recipes a bit, reducing the sugar and substituting half the oil with apple sauce to make my treats healthier without sacrificing taste, texture, or moistness. They were not too sweet; just right.
After
I love baking, sharing, and, of course, eating and photographing the deliciousness that I make. Ironically, I didn't photograph as much as I would have liked. Given my time constraints, I was usually whipping up batches in the latter part of the day. I prefer to exploit natural lighting to get the best food photos, so with the waning daylight, I only got a few snaps of just the sweet potato muffins. I guess I'll have to make more of the pumpkin spice and lemon olive oil muffins to photograph...! The summers in SF are perfect for baking anyways.
With and without walnut toppings