Sunday, January 31, 2010

My mind on my muffins and my muffins on my mind

I grew up being entirely in love with Saturday morning cartoons & of course Strawberry Shortcake. I'll NEVER forget how my SS doll smelled. In my younger years she was an awesome cartoon I could only catch on the weekends and as I grew into a (totally insufferable) teenager she became a fashion icon with her striped tights floppy hat and over sized dress. I've seen lots of *sad faces* all over the internet about Strawberry's "make over" & I'm a little pouty too. She's all skinny and flirty - it makes me feel.. wrong.
So let's leave this unpleasantness behind us and move on to a more creative & modern version of Strawberry Shortcake & Her Berry Best Friends...
**Miss Muffy and the Muff Mob!**
They bake. They rap. They have a hooptie & a serious case of potty mouth.



Muffy & her posse were originally created in 1995 by Bullseyeart, a web animation company that did lots of work with MTV. Fun Fact: Pharcyde had a hand in creating making Miss Muffy's awesome rap songs - which are ALL about baking! I spent my Sunday baking muffins and revisiting these fabulous cartoons. I had her music video for "Lubin da hole with sco" on while my muffins were in the oven and Pharcyde was witty enough to include the sound of an oven timer into the beat, so I kept thinking my muffins were ready.. that silly Pharcyde! Bullseye has since disbanded & if you go looking for them you will find Josh Kimberg's new cartoon site Magic Butter which has some new eye candy (some of which can be offensive) and all of his old classics, including Miss Muffy & The Muff Mob.
While I was poking around doing research for this post I found Josh also created the website for the My Little Pony Project! If you are an 80's child & you happened to miss this while it was going on last year you will want to spend your lunch hour fawning over the gallery of these celebrity designed pony's!


Ok - I was serious when I said I baked muffins (I am eatting one right now) and they are so delicious and nutritious. I want to share them with you, but since it is unlikely that you will be popping over to my place later for tea and muffins I'll just give you the recipe and you can whip them up for you and yours.

*Recipe can easily be made vegan by using soy butter (I used Willow Run) & Ener G egg replacer.



Butternut Squash & Cinnamon Muffins with Bananas AND Zucchini!! This sh*t is good for you.

Ingredients
1 banana, mashed w/ a fork
1 cup cooked butternut squash - mashed up using whatever you like
1 small zucchini - grated
2 eggs
1 stick of butta
1/2 cup white sugar
3 Tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour

Optional Topping (screw the calories - go ahead & make the topping):
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar

Directions
1. First off Get your oven going at 350F.
2.You wanna mix up all your we ingredients first. Throw the banana, butternut squash, zucchini, eggs, butter (room temp), sugar, and oil into a bowl and mix until well blended.
3. In separate mixing bowl, combine salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, wheat flour and white flour.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until batter forms - this is going to be a sticky one ladies and gentlemen!
5. Pour into greased baking cups or muffin tins, and sprinkle with brown sugar-cinnamon topping (if you are feeling awesome). Makes 24 regular size muffins, 48 mini muffins, or 12 regular muffins and 24 mini muffins.
6. Bake at 350. Regular muffins for 16-18 minutes. Mini muffins for 13-15 minutes.

Ok so there's your healthy dose of Animation & Muffins for the day!
Now go forth and do good things today! That's what I'm gonna do!

6 comments:

Camille said...

I'm bummed about the makeover. However, I'm glad to see Strawberry Shortcake get street cred and be recognized as an important child icon of the 80s, albeit sometimes through parodied allusions. Robot Chicken has done a few SS shorts, and Penny Arcade, an online gaming comic, used Ms. Shortcake to mock an over the top adult Alice in Wonderland computer game. With the caricatures of Strawberry Shortcake being so ridiculous in both RC and PA,I like to think that it's their way of saying there was nothing wrong with the original. :)

Mad Mom said...

Mmmm, you brought back great memories of my cousins Strawberry Shortcake doll, I remember you would press on her tummy and she would blow out strawberry breath, lol! Thanks for the memory :)

Jessica D said...

i'm about to lick my computer!

Unknown said...

Delicious - thanks! I made mine gluten free by subbing 7/8 cup brown rice flour for the white flour and 3/4 cup oat flour for the wheat flour. (Some say the oat flour has a little gluten in it though, so watch out - it doesn't seem to bother me.) Rice flour always makes things more crumbly and moist, so I used baking cups and baked for more like 25-30 minutes. Woo hoo for Bonnie Rue :D

Anonymous said...

Growing up in my generation, SS could only mean Sally Starr, but if there was a cowgirl doll, I certainly did not get one. Your muffins are loaded with carbs and topped with sugar, oy. I suppose they would benefit from some protein addition, like chopped nuts, and maybe try some more healthful oil like cocoanut. These are not what whole food geeks would call healthy. Ok, you like sweets. Enjoy.

Model Citizen aka Bonnie Rue said...

Well Anonymous - be like Maggie and feel free to omit whatever you like. It's a recipe for a treat not a rigid set of rules. Have fun with it. If you make it with coconut oil tell me how it turns out...?