Muffins with Mucky

We started with blueberry muffins. My grandmother, Mucky, couldn’t do much else with me but bake so we started with blueberry muffins. Mucky would read from the recipe and I, six or seven years old, would run around the kitchen proving my knowledge of the whereabouts of the baking powder or the flour (each, strangely in a different part of our kitchen/eating area). We mixed it all together excitedly and dumped uneven mounds into ungreased muffin pans. Mucky usually ate and drank two things during the day. She ate plain bread and drank hot water. She made hot water the old-fashioned way in a saucepan on the stove. So when we made blueberry muffins we put on some water at the same time and went outside to the basketball hoop. I attempted to make a basket while Mucky praised me for my efforts for about an hour. We returned inside and the water was boiling violently. Mucky took it off the stove, poured it into a mug, still boiling, and started drinking right away. We took out the muffins and put them on a plate. They had baked but had hardly risen. We forgot the baking powder because Mucky had Alzheimer’s and I was just so excited about the blueberry muffins. The following is one of my families favorite recipes adapted from a recipe of Sconset Café in Nantucket.

(16 muffins)
1 ¼ C. sugar ½ C. raisins or I have used cranberries and currants
2 ¼ C. flour ½ C. shredded coconut + ½ C. pecans (I love slivered almonds)
1 T. cinnamon 2 C. grated carrots (about 3-4 large carrots) or Zucchini!
2 t. baking soda 1 apple shredded (with a cheese shredder, I use granny smith)
½ t. salt 8 oz. crushed pineapple, drained of the syrup

3 eggs
1 C. vegetable oil (safflower oil is good for you and doesn’t change the taste)
1 t. vanilla (My mom is so crazy about vanilla she uses it for all the candles in her bathroom and even has these weird vanilla angels that she hangs in her room that if you sniff their big silk butts, it smells of vanilla, yeah good memory, anyway I use 1 T. for my mom)

Sift together sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. I add ½ t. grated nutmeg for a great resulting flavor.
Then add the fruit, carrots, nuts and stir to combine.

Whisk the wet ingredients in another bowl and pour it into the dry ingredients. Mix well.
Spoon batter into muffin pans, ( I would use muffin papers unless you want a really clean look, which, these are great muffins to bring to a meeting, I should know because my mom has me make them a lot for her meetings) fill to the brim. Bake in 350 degree oven for 35-40 min. Use a toothpick to make sure they’re done. Cool in pan for 10 min. These muffins are huge so you really need to make sure they are done, and they need to be properly cooled in the pan and then onto a rack so they don’t fall apart. The tops may stick to the pan so gently slide a knife under them after taking them out of the oven but before letting them cool for the first 10 minutes. Sconset Café suggests letting them ripen for 24 hours but I usually can’t wait. Have fun and stay in school!