Baking Muffins is Yoga for Me

Do you have a happy place? A place that you like to escape to on a bad day at work, when you're in line at the DMV, or the mall on a Saturday? Simply shut your eyes and pretend you are in this happy place of yours, wherever it may be, doing the one thing that makes you happiest. My happy place is my kitchen, early in the morning, awake only through force of habit, coffee in hand and barefoot. The warm light from the window is spilling onto my foot. This is my place.

I love when the day allows me to peacefully rise and find my happy place. Muffins happen.

I am calm as the ocean in a yoga dvd.

The view from my muffins to the window.

Twenty minutes later I have muffins that have puffed up nicely and are speckled both by chocolate chips and sucanat crystals.

And tilt.

And inhale.

Exhale.

Banana Sucanat Muffins:

2 cups all-purpose un-bleached flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sucanat

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 six-ounce container almond yogurt

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup mini-chips

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, almond yogurt, sucanat, maple syrup, oil, and vanilla. Whisk super well.

Sift in flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix in, only until combined. Fold in mini-chips.

Either line a muffin tin with paper liners, or spray lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with flour. Shake the pan around until all the flour has stuck to the spray. Shake off excess flour.

Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, Fill the muffin tins almost to the top, using a full scoop of batter for each cup. Bake 20 minutes, remove from the oven, and cool for 5 minutes.

After cooling for 5 minutes, tilt the muffins on their sides so that the steam can escape.