Granny Cannon's Muffins

Yesterday, C forwarded me an email and wrote, "Thought you might like this." It was an email that his aunt had sent out to the family that included a bunch of Granny's recipes. I opened it up immediately, excited and curious to see what was in there. I was hoping her fruit dip recipe would be in there, but no luck. I've made a mental note to ask. Her fruit dip is so good that I'd be fine eating it without any fruit whatsoever. Just hand me a bowl of that good stuff and I'll go at it with my fingers!

As I was reading through her recipes, I would think, "Hm, yeah. I think I can make that without butchering it." Or, "There's no way I'd be able to make an edible version of this." 

Right away, I picked out a couple that I knew I could easily make with the kids. They looooove helping in the kitchen, and so I decided our first Granny Cannon recipe we would try out were her muffins. Fortunately, because I make waffles or pancakes three or four mornings a week (the kids are absolute waffle and pancake monsters) we had all the ingredients we needed. (It's amazing how quickly we go through flour here. I think I buy a new bag every other week. (Someone buy me some stock in flour for Christmas, okay?! ) Anyway, I also had some strawberries that were begging to be used, so strawberry muffins it was. 

The kids took turns standing on their little white chairs, and helped me pour and mix and measure. We did have a little mishap with the baking powder (my pregnant brain decided that t and T were the same thing...yeah, SOOO not) but I was able to salvage it. I'll admit that at first glance, I thought for sure we would end up with rocks. So I added a bit more milk and hoped for the best.

Ten minutes later, these came out. And while they may not look beautiful, they were so soft and fluffy and delicious. I always like to add a bit more sugar to things when I bake them, but decided against it because I wanted to stay as authentic to the recipe as I could. S and I added a little jam to ours, and our plate full of muffins soon disappeared.

So, I'll admit. The recipe was not rocket science. When I called Granny last night to tell her that we were planning on making her muffins, in true Granny fashion she said, "Oh. Well, we lived during the Depression. We didn't have a whole lot, you know. We just worked with what he had and made it work." But, to be honest, that's what makes these even better. I love knowing that this recipe was the same one used by her and her own mother before that. I love knowing that in between those cups of flour and teaspoons of baking powder you can find stories. 

I'd like to think that Granny used to eat these muffins with the "Depression jelly" that her mother would make. Granny has told us about Depression jelly so many times. Because they didn't want to let any food go to waste when she was young, her mother would use the peels of the apples to make it into a jelly. It's a wonderful shade of pink, a shade that I know S would love, and tastes delicious. It's one of my favorite things that Granny makes. And though I hate to think of it already, I know it will be one of the things I miss most when she's gone. 

And when there are gaps to those stories behind the recipes that I haven't learned about yet, I can fill those gaps with new stories. New memories. Like how when J saw that I was sad today when I had used too much baking powder and considered giving up, he looked up and said, "Are you sad, mama? It's okay! We can fix it!"

Luckily, we did. But maybe making perfect muffins isn't the point, is it? Maybe it's something else. And that something is the stuff that lasts.