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Let muffins cool briefly in their tins; remove them either one by one with a fork, or simply turn the tin upside down over a towel, giving it a firm but gentle tap if the muffins don’t all tumble out. (If you ran out of batter before all the cups were full and put water in the empty cup to keep the grease from burning, don’t forget to sponge out the remaining water before you turn the tin upside down.)

Recipes for Loaves

Poppy Loaf

½ cup raisins

2 cups coarse oat flour

½ cup whole wheat bread flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon mace or nutmeg

2 eggs

2 tablespoons oil (or butter)

2 to 4 tablespoons honey OR

¼ cup date sugar

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons lemon peel

Oats and poppy seeds give this loaf a delicacy that harmonizes well with many dishes, from asparagus soup to zucchini Provençale. Makes super muffins.

If you don’t have oat flour on hand you can make it in your electric blender or food processor from rolled oats: blend ½ to ¾ cups at a time to make the 2 cups; it will take a little less than 3 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats.

Either soak raisins 5 minutes in ¼ cup boiling water and whirl briefly in blender, or chop them coarsely by hand and then soak them.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8″ 4″ loaf pan.

Put oat flour in bowl and sift in the other dry ingredients. Beat together eggs, oil, and honey or date sugar. Stir milk, raisins and water, poppy seeds, and lemon peel, and add the egg mixture.

Add dry to liquid ingredients, stirring just enough to mix well. Turn into pan, and sprinkle with more poppy seeds. Bake for about an hour.

Wheat Germ Loaf

¼ cup light molasses OR

2 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses

¼ cup oil

1 egg

1 ½ cups buttermilk or yogurt

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

¾ cup whole wheat bread flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¾ cup wheat germ

1 tablespoon wheat germ

This bread is not sweet but has a pronounced wheat germ flavor, so it plays a good supporting role with soup or salad.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Beat sweetener and oil together with a fork. Beat in the egg and buttermilk. Sift flours, salt, baking powder, and soda together; stir in the wheat germ. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, avoiding both lumps and overbeating.

Fill a greased 8″x4″ loaf pan and sprinkle top with wheat germ. Bake for about an hour, but check after 40 minutes to see how it is doing.

FRESH APPLE OR PEAR BREAD

Use butter for the oil measure. Use all honey for sweetener; if fruit is tart, adjust the honey measure. Cream honey and butter together, and add 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel. Follow the recipe as written, and when the batter is ready, fold in 1 cup grated fresh apple plus 1 teaspoon cinnamon; or add 1 cup grated fresh pear plus ¼ teaspoon ginger; and ½ cup toasted chopped nuts, if you like. Either of these breads is good baked as a loaf, but maybe even nicer baked in an 8″ 11″ pan, and cut into squares.

The loaf version takes about an hour and a quarter to bake, the cake version, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Zucchini-Rice Bread

½ cup raisins, chopped

1 cup hot water

1 ¼ cup fresh brown rice flour

1 cup whole wheat bread flour

2 tablespoons powdered milk

1 tablespoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon powdered ginger

½ cup wheat bran

3 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons oil or butter

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon lemon peel

1 ½ cups grated zucchini

¾ cup of the raisin water

If you wish, you may substitute whole wheat pastry flour for the rice flour in this bread: the result will be a little more familiar-tasting, a little less interesting.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8″x4″ loaf pan. Soak the raisins in the hot water. Sift the dry ingredients together, adding the bran after the sifting.

Cream the honey and butter, or stir the honey and oil together; add the egg and