In Thursday's food section of our local newspaper there was a recipe that caught my eye, and I pointed it out to my husband. It was for something really scrumptious, claimed the food writer. A recipe for brownies, those delicious squares of moist chocolate cake. This one was different because the recipe went on to embellish the brownies with bacon bits crackled in maple syrup, then scattered over the baked brownies. My husband grimaced, and I chuckled.

Obviously, this was one recipe that didn't appeal to us. As it is, I rarely use recipes taken from newspapers, although I do on occasion value the ideas of ingredients-pairing that those recipes inspire in me, and then go on to create something that may resemble the recipe for our own dinner table; my own interpretation if you will. I don't usually measure ingredients when I'm baking. I more or less have a 'feel', a visual inspection of correct amounts in relation to other ingredients. Which isn't surprising, given my experience in handling such ingredients over a half-century and more.

Yesterday I chose to bake carrot muffins for dinner dessert. I use muffin tins and papers twice the ordinary size. In an approximation, I vigorously mixed 2/3 c. of dark brown sugar and a half-cup of Becel margarine, then added two eggs, one-by-one, mixing well between each addition. I measured out a cup of unbleached white all-purpose flour, added a bit of salt, and about a half-teaspoon each of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves (a little less of the cloves, a little more of the cinnamon), and a teaspoon of baking powder, mixing all the dry ingredients together. Then I alternated adding the dry ingredients to the sugar/fat/egg mixture, with a quarter-cup of sour cream.

I had previous grated two very large carrots. I added the carrots, a half-cup raisins, third cup grated coconut, third cup chopped walnuts to the muffin batter, mixing only until well incorporated. And then dolloped it out into the waiting baking cups to bake for about 30 minutes in a 320-degree Fahrenheit convection oven.

When they cooled I mixed a quarter-cup cream cheese with a half-cup Becel, added a teaspoon vanilla, and beat in icing sugar for a loose icing. Which topped the baked, cooled muffins, over which was sprinkled desiccated coconut. They looked great, and tasted even better. Made all the more so by bright explosions of piquancy due to the bits of candied ginger I had snipped into the batter pre-baking.