Nonce Muffins

I’ve always loved to bake. Now that I have two children, I’m more interested in activities that both accomplish something with the kids and seem like fun. It has been my experience that an early morning activity works well for the three of us. Tempers are lower, patience is longer, and the day itself is still new and full of potential. I started making muffins when my daughter was old enough to eat them. Now, my kids are old enough to set up the muffin-tin liners, crack eggs, and stir batter. I am now experienced enough to make muffins without a recipe. And let me speak directly to those who feel that baking from scratch takes too long: you can mix up the batter and fill a twelve-cup muffin pan in the time it takes the oven to warm up. Trust me.

What kind of muffins to make? At our house, we make "nonce muffins." In poetry, "nonce" is the word for a rhyme scheme composed for and used on just one occasion. For example, a 14-line poem that rhymes "abcdefggfedc ba" or "abbbbbbb bbbbba," rather than the traditional sonnet rhyme schemes of "abbaabba cdecde" (the Italian sonnet), "ababcdcdefef gg" (the English or Shakespearean sonnet) or "ababbcbccdcd ee" (the Spenserian sonnet) is a nonce sonnet, because it varies wildly from the standard form. If you’re cloudy on your sonnet rhyme schemes, any good poetry manual will outline them more neatly than I have. John Hollander’s Rhyme’s Reason is a particularly approachable book on poetic forms, and his explanatory examples are excellent.

But I digress. This is not an essay on poetics. The important part here is the nonce part, not the sonnet part. Finding freedom within the constraints of the form is the heart of creativity. As Wordsworth says, "’Twas pastime to be bound/within the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground." In other words, the nonce muffin is a muffin made up on the spot.

So, you’ve got your little ones. You’ve got your basic recipe. You’ve got the nagging feeling you should go read some sonnets. Now you need your mise-en-place--the fancy term for lining up all your ingredients on the counter before you start cooking. I myself decide what kind of muffins to make by considering both the mood of the day and what food need to be used up.

A cold , rainy day calls for a heavier, spicier muffin, perhaps with extra whole-wheat flour. A summer day needs lemon or pineapple, or both. Most of all, the nonce muffin wants the element of surprise. I think it’s helpful to stand in front of the refrigerator or pantry and see what wants to be used up. The nice thing about the nonce muffin is that it’s low commitment. If your combination truly is horrible, you can always toast up some bagels and take the muffins to the park for the birds.

Leftover grains are great. Millet or rice can be whirled in the food processor. Save yesterday’s leftover cooked oatmeal, multigrain cereal, or Grape-Nuts. These can be added without further processing. Leftover cooked vegetables work well, too. Mash or chunk up any root vegetable. The ethereal spiciness of rutabaga and parsnip is particularly wonderful with cardamom and nutmeg. And fruit on the edge finds its final home in the nonce muffin. Indeed, a batch of muffins made from the last few good cherries, strawberries, and plums could well enter family history. Toss in some dried fruits, cornmeal, or chopped or ground nuts. Be bold: scrape out the last of the applesauce jar, the yogurt container, the jam jar.

A gallery of unique muffins lies before you as you grow in your confidence. While I thought the muffins we made out of the last of the Thanksgiving cranberry chutney were tasty in an exotic kind of way, others thought they tasted "off." Best of all were the muffins we made for the nonce out of the last dabs of a sweet potato puree I had made with lime juice and maple syrup. To the sweet potato puree, I added unsweetened dried coconut, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, and a grated carrot. After they were baked, I remembered some cream cheese frosting cached in the freezer. We had these muffins for dessert, just once, because the fortuitous combination we discovered will likely never be repeated.

I’m not sure where the summer will take me. Last year the squirrels got into the tomatoes. Apparently picky eaters with bad memories, they spent the summer nibbling a few delicate bites of the tomatoes and then dropping them, perfectly good on one side. And I haven’t ever made tomato muffins. Tomato muffins with ginger and poppy seed, anyone?

Basic Muffins

This recipe is your blank canvas, onto which you may paint as colorfully as you are comfortable. I’ve included it here almost as I found it in the August 19, 1998 edition of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, with my emendations in italics.

2 cups flour [you can use up to one half cornmeal, whole-wheat, or other flour]

1/4 to 1 cup sugar [lately we’ve been using brown sugar for its depth of flavor; we’ve also successfully used maple syrup or honey as sweeteners, too]

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 cup berries, chopped apple, chunked (not overripe) banana or other diced fresh fruit [you can freely substitute anything that calls to you here]

1/2 cup to 1 cup chopped [or ground] nuts, if desired

1/4 to 1/2 cup melted butter or vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk (plus 1 to 2 tablespoons if minimum sugar is used) [feel free to use juice or eggnog instead]

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease and flour 12 regular sized muffin cups, or line with paper baking cups. [I always use the paper liners, because children are excellent at this task.]

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt [now’s the time to add any spices you might be using]. Add the berries or fruit [or whatever has called to you to be used] with the nuts; toss with a fork until they are all separately coated with flour. [Next, add in any grain you might be using.] Mix the butter or oil, milk and eggs together and then add to the dry ingredients [I never do this. I just add them right into the big bowl, along with a teaspoon of vanilla]. Stir with a fork until just blended.

Spoon into the prepared pans [I use a quarter-cup measure to do this]. Bake muffins at 400 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.