It is science
-
I'm pretty sure chocolate might have some caffeine too
That's why I make my coffee as mocha, it's a health drink!
-
This post did not contain any content.
I want you to put the same number of blueberries into each muffin.
Do you know how long that will take?
I don't care, just do it.
-
My wife .... a salad is healthy
Goes on to make a salad fit for a serving of four people filled with ranch dressing, cheese, bacon and nuts.
I love her dearly but she absolutely refuses to admit to a smaller salad.
I also make fat girl on a diet salads, but I am aware of what I am doing with no illusions about how healthy it is.
-
This post did not contain any content.
In the 1990s when muffins were a craze in the USA my neighbor, a vegan food scientist, kept wondering how anyone thought cake was acceptable for breakfast. I never thought of it as cake until I made a batch and then made a cake and realized they were essentially identical processes.
-
Pro tip for baking modern American recipes is you can cut about 1/3 of the sugar no problem, up to 1/2 on some recipes. Bran goes really well with blueberries. The blueberry muffins I make are basically lightly sweetened wheat bread and they slap. Muffins are a quick bread but somewhere along the line people wanted to lie to themselves and eat cupcakes while pretending they're still muffins
muffins are essentially cake in most formations. Cake, unlike many baked goods, is one where making massive changes is often ill advised as the chemistry of cakes is a lot more delicate than say bread or cookies. Removing 1/3 of the sugar in a cake/muffin recipe will lead to a tougher and drier muffin than one that has the recommended sugar amount.
Rather than remove large amounts of sugars it is better to find one that was created to not need the sugar to begin with
-
It's ok, I believe chocolate also has antioxidants so it's healthy too!
Especially if paired with red wine
-
Muffins are cake. I don't eat cake except on special occasions. I think this is a pretty good rule.
Breakfast is a special occasion though.
-
muffins are essentially cake in most formations. Cake, unlike many baked goods, is one where making massive changes is often ill advised as the chemistry of cakes is a lot more delicate than say bread or cookies. Removing 1/3 of the sugar in a cake/muffin recipe will lead to a tougher and drier muffin than one that has the recommended sugar amount.
Rather than remove large amounts of sugars it is better to find one that was created to not need the sugar to begin with
It may be semantics but I do not consider muffins to be cake, that would make it a cupcake. Muffins are closer to quick bread to the point where any quick bread recipes I have tried work as muffins with no changes to ingredients only cooking time. For sure if you cut too much sugar out of something you lose structure but that's why I specified American recipes. They generally have way more sugar than what's necessary for structure and there's a lot of wiggle room with how much you can take out
-
It may be semantics but I do not consider muffins to be cake, that would make it a cupcake. Muffins are closer to quick bread to the point where any quick bread recipes I have tried work as muffins with no changes to ingredients only cooking time. For sure if you cut too much sugar out of something you lose structure but that's why I specified American recipes. They generally have way more sugar than what's necessary for structure and there's a lot of wiggle room with how much you can take out
Cake is made from a sweetened batter. Muffins are made from a sweetened batter. Bread is made from dough. Dough has a lower fat/moisture content to it than batter.
Your quick bread substitutions are making something closer to rolls than muffins. Im sure your wheat roll equivalent to blueberry muffins are tasty but they are going to have a radically consistency than a traditional batter based muffin. Muffins are not quick breads.
Out of curiosity are you vegan?
-
This post did not contain any content.
If anything, the chocolate chips are healthier than the blueberries, since chocolate has more antioxidants than blueberries.
-
Cake is made from a sweetened batter. Muffins are made from a sweetened batter. Bread is made from dough. Dough has a lower fat/moisture content to it than batter.
Your quick bread substitutions are making something closer to rolls than muffins. Im sure your wheat roll equivalent to blueberry muffins are tasty but they are going to have a radically consistency than a traditional batter based muffin. Muffins are not quick breads.
Out of curiosity are you vegan?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Quick bread isn't the same as bread... Although I am seeing that cakes can be considered a type of quick bread so again I think this might largely be related to semantics. Things like banana bread, corn bread, biscuits, zucchini bread, are all quick breads that work as muffins and can have greatly reduced sugar without damaging their structure. The wheat and bran blueberry muffins I make are similar to sweetened wheat bread in flavor but texturally they're like a dense muffin. I'm not using gluten and yeast for the structure they use other leavening agents which is why they're a quick bread. My substitutions are: Less sugar, use whole wheat flour, sub some flour with bran and wheat germ. No I don't have any dietary restrictions
Edit to add: Also muffins don't have to be sweet like at all. There are plenty of savory muffin recipes that have little to no sugar, because they're a type of quick bread not specifically cake
-
This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
My wife's family is extremely health conscious and typically eats like rabbits. There's not a dish they have encountered that couldn't be "improved" with a metric fuck ton of broccoli, kale, onions, zucchini, etc. But they also love brownies. It is typically their only indulgence at family get togethers.
But instead of using eggs and oil in the mix like it calls for, they substitute those evil fats with applesauce instead. It kind of sort of works from a textural standpoint, but it definitely still tastes vaguely of applesauce which is not super desirable in a chocolate brownie. Ostensibly the idea is to make it "healthier" and lower calorie. But given all the sugar and other carbs in the batter (including the added sugar from the apples) the calorie difference is negligible but the end result is not the same at all. It feels like they missed the point and messed up the brownies for no reason at all. Doesn't stop them from calling them "healthy brownies" though. Stretching the definition of "healthy" reeeeaaaal far.
-
In the 1990s when muffins were a craze in the USA my neighbor, a vegan food scientist, kept wondering how anyone thought cake was acceptable for breakfast. I never thought of it as cake until I made a batch and then made a cake and realized they were essentially identical processes.
How is cake unacceptable for breakfast?
I mean, even a vegan has to appreciate the power of cake.
-
How is cake unacceptable for breakfast?
I mean, even a vegan has to appreciate the power of cake.
It’s a ton of fat and sugars with no added nutritional benefit.
-
If anything, the chocolate chips are healthier than the blueberries, since chocolate has more antioxidants than blueberries.
Spoiler: Those usually are not blueberries, they are sugar beets.
-
Quick bread isn't the same as bread... Although I am seeing that cakes can be considered a type of quick bread so again I think this might largely be related to semantics. Things like banana bread, corn bread, biscuits, zucchini bread, are all quick breads that work as muffins and can have greatly reduced sugar without damaging their structure. The wheat and bran blueberry muffins I make are similar to sweetened wheat bread in flavor but texturally they're like a dense muffin. I'm not using gluten and yeast for the structure they use other leavening agents which is why they're a quick bread. My substitutions are: Less sugar, use whole wheat flour, sub some flour with bran and wheat germ. No I don't have any dietary restrictions
Edit to add: Also muffins don't have to be sweet like at all. There are plenty of savory muffin recipes that have little to no sugar, because they're a type of quick bread not specifically cake
This isn’t semantics. If you remove sugar you chemically alter the structure of the good. They will be tougher as a result.
The “quickbreads” you list are all batters. Try finding a dough based bread that becomes a muffin.
Again, I ask if you are vegan/plant based diet. Im not looking to engage with you on the morality. I have just noticed over the course if my time baking many vegans maintain their changes would make a similar product or an identical one when the science does not back that claim.
-
It’s a ton of fat and sugars with no added nutritional benefit.
But what if we flatten the cake and fry it in butter instead of baking it? Surely that would be healthy, right?
Hang on. It's a little bland. I'd better pile more butter and liquified sugar on top.
-
My wife's family is extremely health conscious and typically eats like rabbits. There's not a dish they have encountered that couldn't be "improved" with a metric fuck ton of broccoli, kale, onions, zucchini, etc. But they also love brownies. It is typically their only indulgence at family get togethers.
But instead of using eggs and oil in the mix like it calls for, they substitute those evil fats with applesauce instead. It kind of sort of works from a textural standpoint, but it definitely still tastes vaguely of applesauce which is not super desirable in a chocolate brownie. Ostensibly the idea is to make it "healthier" and lower calorie. But given all the sugar and other carbs in the batter (including the added sugar from the apples) the calorie difference is negligible but the end result is not the same at all. It feels like they missed the point and messed up the brownies for no reason at all. Doesn't stop them from calling them "healthy brownies" though. Stretching the definition of "healthy" reeeeaaaal far.
Suggest to them to use pureed pumpkin instead. My wife does that and I can barely tell.
-
But what if we flatten the cake and fry it in butter instead of baking it? Surely that would be healthy, right?
Hang on. It's a little bland. I'd better pile more butter and liquified sugar on top.
It's perfect. Sweet, savory, pan fried cake.
Panfriedcake. That's what we'll call it
-
This isn’t semantics. If you remove sugar you chemically alter the structure of the good. They will be tougher as a result.
The “quickbreads” you list are all batters. Try finding a dough based bread that becomes a muffin.
Again, I ask if you are vegan/plant based diet. Im not looking to engage with you on the morality. I have just noticed over the course if my time baking many vegans maintain their changes would make a similar product or an identical one when the science does not back that claim.
I already said that I don't have dietary restrictions also biscuits are typically referred to as being made with biscuit dough, not biscuit batter (at least where I'm from). I think discussing the differences between a dough and a batter in this context though is straying too far from what we're actually talking about so I don't particularly want to get into that.
I don't understand why you're putting quick bread in quotes so I'm asking sincerely do you not know what I mean when I say quick bread? As in something that's "leavened with a chemical agent rather than a biological one" such as baking soda/powder instead of yeast? Because this includes cake (and brownies and cookies even), I will change my case to be more like: Most people I've met in the US aren't wrong when they say they like muffins but it would be more specific to say they want cupcakes. In my opinion, we often put enough sugar into the muffins to cross the line into cupcake territory. Since they're both quick breads I'd argue cupcakes are muffins but not all muffins are cupcakes.
It's like my roommate kept telling me they like pancakes and so I'd make pancakes and they didn't like them because they were too thick. By the time I had thinned the recipe down enough for their liking I was actually making crepes, which are a type of pancake. They weren't wrong by saying they like pancakes but they would have been better off just admitting they actually like crepes and not what is generally thought of when someone says pancake.
I'm not trying to say that if you reduce sugar it is unchanged. I am saying that quick breads are very lenient with how much sugar can go in them while still maintaining good mouth feel, especially when the recipe already has a considerable amount of sugar as do many recipes that cater to modern US sugar addiction.
