My Mother-in-Law has recently been attending a kūpuna group each day. Those folks have quite a bit of fun, with their fundraisers, quilt-making, outings, hula, and everything else they do. Wow! I get tired just listening to everything they have going on! Anyway, I’ve been trying to make some snacks for Mom to take to her group every so often. Not entirely altruistic, I assure you. Kūpuna are quite forthright with their criticism, so they are a great way to test new recipes!

Right now, I’m working on whole wheat muffins. A muffin is basically a single-serving quick bread. One of the reasons I like them is because they freeze so well. You can make lots of them, in many different flavors, and then just pull out a few of each flavor as needed!

Muffins are good for using up leftover veggies and fruits. And they can be packed with fiber, helping to keep muffin tops in their rightful place, instead of hanging over our jeans!

Another project I’ve been working on is juice. I do like my juice! So, I got out the juicer my daughter gave me several Mother’s Days ago, and went to town. Especially with carrots. I do like carrot juice! But then you have all this left-over carrot pulp. What to do with it? Hmmmmmm. . .  carrot pulp. . . . muffins. . . .  kūpuna. . . . AHA! So, here’s the first recipe:

Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbs ground cinnamon
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 1 cup raw or brown sugar
• 2 cups carrot pulp from juicer (or grated carrots)
• 1 cup carrot, apple, or other juice
• 1 tsp grated lemon peel
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line the cups in a muffin pan with muffin/cupcake papers.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in medium bowl; set aside. 

Beat eggs and oil in a large bowl with a wire whisk until well blended. Gradually add sugar, mixing until blended. Fold in remaining ingredients and mix well. I find a soup ladle to be the easiest way to pour the batter into the muffin cups.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes to a half hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Ever wonder what to do with all the pumpkin innards you scrape out while making a jack-o-lantern? When I was a girl, we separated the seeds from the pulp, washed the seeds, spread them out on a cookie sheet, sprinkled a little salt on them, and toasted them in the oven. Dried pumpkin seed is a very popular Pake snack, and healthful, too! The have a lot of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and good minerals like zinc, magnesium, copper, potassium, and iron. After my Nana toasted them up, my Tutu Man would nibble them while watching his “shoot ‘em up westerns,” as my Nana called them. 

Once all the seeds are out, you can take the remaining pumpkin pulp and bake it into these ono pumpkin muffins. If you are looking for a good cooking pumpkin, rather than going for the jack-o-lantern types, the locally grown Japanese kabocha pumpkins are meaty and flavorful.

Pumpkin Muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup raw or brown sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cloves
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ½ inch ginger finely minced
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup pumpkin innards
• ½ cup applesauce

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper baking cups. Mix together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend well. Fill muffin cups. Bake at 325°F for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Here is a big secret about me and my Hunny – don’t tell anyone, ok? One of the ways I knew he was The One is because he likes kūlolo as much as I do! Well, grating all that taro and coconut, and building an imu, just doesn’t happen as often as I would like. So, to get my recommended daily allowance of kūlolo, I’m experimenting. If you like Boston Brown Bread, you just may enjoy Kūlolo Muffins.

One thing that is important is to use high-quality coconut milk. I used to only buy Mendonca’s frozen coconut milk, but it has not been available for some time. My sources tell me that back in 2006, when a storm wiped out much of the coconut crop in the Philippines, Mendonca’s got hit hard and could no longer supply Hawai`i. Fortunately, Hawaiian Sun stepped up to the plate, and high quality frozen coconut milk remains available. 

Kūlolo Muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup raw or brown sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½  tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 large eggs
• 1-1/2 cup coconut milk (fresh or Hawaiian Sun frozen)
• 1 cup `ai pa`a (hard poi before water has been added)

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper baking cups. Mix together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend well. Fill muffin cups. Bake at 325°F for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Our waiāwi are still in fruit, so I have been picking and freezing them, as well as making waiāwi puree and freezing that. So, here is a nice fruit muffin recipe for those waiawi.

Waiāwi Muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup raw or brown sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ inch ginger finely minced
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup oil
• 1 cup seeded and chopped waiāwi
• 1 cup waiāwi puree

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper baking cups. Mix together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend well. Fill muffin cups. Bake at 325°F for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

If you have a favorite muffin recipe, please share it with us! Mahalo!