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Does soaking make a difference? It’s the million dollar question of the week (and weeks to come). There is enough anecdotal evidence that soaking does something, something good, that I’m still a believer, even as I research further.
My One-Bowl Healthy Pumpkin Muffins became a huge hit last fall and remain one of my most popular posts and often discovered via search engines. They deserve all those accolades and more. They are the easiest, most moist muffins you’ll ever find. The only person in the world who doesn’t like them is our 4-year-old neighbor. Trust me. 
It took one batch of concave muffins, still moist but rather dense, for me to nail the soaked version, which really is within 95% as good as the original.
I’m fiddling with all sorts of things for my upcoming Healthy Snacks to Go and Have Your (Healthy!) Dessert and Eat it Too eBooks. Sometimes I even take samples when I go out to meet others for dinner. This recipe has a cameo in Healthy Snacks, along with a handful of reverse engineered Larabars, and I’ve got a workable soaked whole wheat brownie recipe that will be golden with a few tweaks. Drooling yet? Heh heh heh.
NOTE: Recipe updates and a nicely formatted printable version of this and 30 other “Healthy Snacks to Go” recipes now available as an eBook!
Without further ado, here’s your weekend snack:
Soaked Famous Pumpkin Muffins
Mix together and allow to rest (soak) overnight at room temperature:
1 2/3 cup white whole wheat flour
1 c. pureed pumpkin
3/4 c. water + 2 Tbs buttermilk or plain yogurt
1/2 c. melted butter
Do make sure your butter is cooled a bit before mixing in, and pour while mixing so the colder ingredients don’t harden up the butter.
When ready to bake, add:
1 cup sugar or natural granular alternative
2 eggs
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Method: Pour into muffin cups and bake 45 minutes at 325 degrees F. They’ll be a bit more moist than you’re used to with the “toothpick test”. Do not overbake! Allow to rest 5 minutes in the tins, then tip out to cool on racks.
Sometimes soaked versions of recipes can leave something to be desired. The ultimate compliment on this one: Husband said, “Yum!” and he didn’t notice anything different than normal. Yee-hah!
If you’d like to see the other versions, including the original with white flour all the way to a no-white-sugar option, see the first healthy pumpkin muffins post.
Adapt Your Own Recipes
Many recipes can be adapted for soaking, some easily, some take a little more work. Quickbreads aren’t the easiest, but biscuits, pancakes, breads, and tortillas are usually no problem.
I wrote up the directions for How to Soak Flour in a Whole Grain Recipe for eHow, and you can see the measurements for adapting your own recipes there. I learned the trick of adding some baking soda (and sometimes reducing the baking powder) from the More-with-Less Cookbook’s cornbread option using sour milk. The acidity of sour milk, buttermilk, or yogurt necessitates a small change in the rising agent. Concave muffins aren’t that cute!
You can see the ever-so-simple directions for soaking oatmeal too, and if you’ve never soaked anything, that’s a great place to start!
If you feel like soaking grains or other traditional foods preparation techniques are a bit foreign to you, do consider taking the GNOWFGLINS eCourse, where you’ll learn through video, audio, recipes, and textual information how to get comfortable with 14 different techniques. It’s less than $10/class, and a great benefit is access to a members’ forum with the other 300+ attendees. Wow! Check out the latest freebie sneak preview, an Article, Audio and PDF: “13 Tips for Maintaining and Establishing New Routines”. Seriously, this gal has good stuff to say. I’m bookmarking this article!
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Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of the eCourse and will receive a commission if you sign up through this site. I would sing Wardeh’s praises anyway, but I sure appreciate her sharing the love and your support for KS by purchasing here. Thanks!
See Food Renegade for Fight Back Friday and The Nourishing Gourmet for Pennywise Platter Thursday.
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I’m going to try these muffins this weekend! I even have buttermilk, strangely. This recipe sounds divine!
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These look really good. I love pumpkin and I appreciate all the info you have on soaking grains. Thank you!!
Melodie´s last blog ..How and Why I Became Vegetarian
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Katie, you ARE already such a good steward! May your Lenten sacrifices be a blessing to you.
You mentioned re-engineered Larabars in your post above. On that note, you MUST try the Raw Chocolate Coconut Snowball Cookies found at tropicaltraditions.com . Make them small because they are very rich. They are like a Larabar with some cacao nibs (chocolate) for amazing flavor. They are made in a food processor. A delicious, simple treat…guaranteed.
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Does it have to be white whole wheat flour, or can it be regular whole wheat flour?
I want to try this!
Audrey´s last blog ..Book Review: You Are Captivating: Celebrating a Mother’s Heart
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Katie Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Audrey,
I haven’t tried it with 100% whole wheat, although the regular recipe with 1/2 whole wheat 1/2 AP flour is great. It would be a bit more grainy, I imagine, but I bet it would be good! If you try it, will you come on back and let us know?
Thanks! Katie
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Stacy Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 11:22 am
I am going to try this with whole wheat pastry flour because that is all that I have. I would think that it would come out less grainy than regular stone ground ww flour. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.
Stacy´s last blog ..Have you checked out the new Simple Living Media sites?
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Stacy Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
The muffins were AWESOME! I did use the ww pastry flour with the yogurt and they were not the least bit grainy, IMO. The rest of the family devoured the muffins without any compaints. Thanks for sharing this recipe with us, Katie!
Stacy´s last blog ..Have you checked out the new Simple Living Media sites?
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So I have a question about when you are tweaking recipes, and trying out different ingredients, like this one with soaking, and the reverse engineering that you were recently talking about. What do you do when they don’t turn out so well. I know you hate to waste food, and so do I, so sometimes I’m hesitant to try new things or switch things up for fear that it won’t turn out and I will have wasted all the ingredients, the money spent on the ingredients, and I’ll just have to throw the food away. Do you ever have total bombs that are pretty much inedible, or even times where something is edible, but not really that good? Just wondering what you do with the food in those situations?
LOVE the original “healthy” pumpkin muffins. Still not sure how I feel about soaking, but maybe I just need to try it out for myself and see.
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Katie Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Emily,
You got me pegged! That would be why I haven’t bothered to try regular whole wheat like the commenter above mentioned. I’m afraid of a not-so-good result! I make half batches when experimenting, and I’ve been lucky enough not to have tooo many inedible bombs. I make croutons out of my nasty bread, but if I get a bum batch of muffins, there’s not much I can do. I skip the walnuts when testing out changes, for example, b/c nuts are expensive. Don’t tell anyone, but last week I threw out the liver pate that I couldn’t tolerate after it was a few days old. Cringe and try to forget it!
If it’s edible but not that good, sometimes I offer it up. Sometimes I leave it so long that it gets moldy…somehow throwing out something that no one obviously should eat makes me feel better about waste!
Katie
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These sound a lot like my mom’s pumpkin muffins! I can testify that they are delicious. But my mom’s recipe uses molasses … that might be worth a try, subbing out some of the sugar for molasses. It goes well with the pumpkin and spices. However, it might throw off the wet/dry ingredient balance? I don’t generally alter baking recipes, so if anyone’s brave enough to try, I’d like to hear about it.
Sheila´s last blog ..Frozen Yogurt
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Hi Katie – I’m 2 for 2 on making concave breads via soaking. Yesterday I finally got around to cooking and pureeing a couple of sugar pumpkins left over from the fall and saw your recipe for your muffins, so decided to give it a whirl. I followed your instructions, soaking the flour, etc., overnight, and made the muffins this AM, but they didn’t rise (however, they are quite tasty!). The only other time I’ve tried soaking was to make bread, and again, that never rose, and never really cooked all the way on the inside, even though the crust was beginning to get very dark. I ended up with gooey bricks, essentially. (I do enjoy making bread and have been quite successful in making it without soaking, so while I’m not a bread-making expert, I’m not a novice either.) The two times I’ve attempted this, I’ve left the soaking mixture out on the counter – perhaps that’s the hiccup – it may need to be in a warmer environment?? It’s about 68 degrees in our kitchen.
Signed,
The flat baker
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Katie Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:42 am
Cindy,
Katie
Oh, sad! At least the flat baker still has a sense of humor about the whole thing. Our house is 64, so that’s not your problem. I remember my muffin cups were pretty full, so maybe I was just lucky they weren’t concave. They were flatter than usual, so perhaps they would have gone concave if the cups were only 2/3 full. Maybe more baking soda? I really make sure I mix the leavening in well after the soaking, because I think sometimes there are just pockets of baking powder not doing its job. I wish I could help more! (You’d love the original recipe – so maybe soaking isn’t vital here.)
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I have the new Meatless Monday Link up and running. I would love to have you join us again. I know you have been doing a lot with grains and breads lately, so those could fit in perfectly.
http://teachingmoneytokids.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/meatless-monda…ese-enchiladas/
I totally missed my Blogoversary it was February 1st! So congratulations on one year well done.
Staci
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I tried these this weekend and they were great. I used whole wheat pastry flour with no problems and i made them in mini muffins for a snack bite size. I just adjusted the time to 20 minutes. Thanks for the recipe
Tiffany
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These sound absolutely delicious!
Jenn AKA The Leftover Queen´s last blog ..Ladies Supper Club: Dishing Up Vermont!
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I gave these a shot and, though they were delicious, I always have trouble mixing soaked muffin/quick bread recipes thoroughly. I decided to call them “marbled pumpkin muffins”…just wondering if you have any advice for fully incorporating the soaked flour with the rest of the ingredients? I used my kitchen aid, but it didn’t seem to do the trick. I was afraid to over mix them since you aren’t supposed to over mix quick breads, but maybe it’s different with soaked recipes?
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Katie Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 6:32 am
Joanna,
Katie
I guess I just beat them to death! But I know what you mean; soaking really gets some of the ingredients out of order.
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Fight Back Friday February 19th | Food Renegade // Feb 25, 2010 at 6:41 pm
[...] (Toxic fish)9. Michelle @ HFL (How To Get More Whole (& Nourishing) Foods In Your Diet) 10. Kitchen Stewardship (SOAKED Pumpkin Muffin success!)11. Eat NAtto Now!12. The Cholesterol Plot Thickens (Melissa @CI)13. Healing Begins In The [...]
Can you make this with honey then if it’s soaked?
Ari-Food Intolerances Cook´s last blog ..Mini Easy Little Cheesecakes
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Katie Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 5:26 am
Ari,
Katie
I have a honey version of the recipe, but I just haven’t tried it soaked yet. I’m hoping it will work! (Let me know if you try it, ok?)
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Hi Katie,
I just tried these with banana instead of pumpkin, and ohmygoodness are they delicious. I made it with 100% whole wheat and they are not too grainy (surpringly) and i also added some coconut flakes and sunflower seeds into the soaking step. I am also a HUGE fan of your granola recipes. Thanks for having such a great blog!
Claudia
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Katie Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 4:32 am
Claudia,
Katie
Yay! It’s great to have other options with a recipe; thank you for adding the comment so others know they can try it!
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Baked these today with mashed sweet potato instead of pumpkin; my almost two year old (birthday next week) decided that they were his “birthday cupcake” and has eaten 4 of them today!
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I’m wondering about all these so-many-weeks-in-the-fridge muffin mixes…aren’t they just essentially soaked grain muffins in the end? I’m thinking something like this recipe which I haven’t tried:
Refrigerator Muffins *
Wet Mix:
2 cups boiling water
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup oil
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
4 cups plain low fat yoghurt or buttermilk
2 cup dried mixed fruit
Dry Mix:
3 cups wholemeal flour
2 cups plain flour
4 cups allbran or flakey bran
4 teaspoons baking soda
Combine rolled oats and boiling water in a bowl and allow to cool. Thoroughly combine the oil, sugar, eggs and yoghurt and stir in the mixed fruits. Add to the soaked oats.
Combine dry mix and then thoroughly mix into wet mix. **Keep this batter in
a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to six weeks. Gently mix
before placing into muffin pans to bake.**
Bake medium hot oven for 20 – 25 mins for 12 muffins.
Makes 40 – 50 muffins.
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Katie Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Jill,
Katie
Sounds like a recipe I used to love! A few things make it not “soaked”. 1. the batter would need to be at room temp or above for 12-24 hours, and 2. the cereal obviously is already cooked and extruded and such, so you can’t really “soak” it after that.
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