Scob Scones

A 100% original muffin recipe, good for breakfast and snacks. The cornmeal, banana and soy milk provide enough flavor and sweetness to make sugar completely unnecessary. In spite of all the dry ingredients, these muffins are fluffy and moist.

A note on the name: a good name makes it much more likely that you'll look for and reuse a recipe, so I tossed around a few ideas and thought of an acronym using all the exciting healthy ingredients: SCOB (soy milk, cornmeal, oats and banana). I did a search to see if the word actually meant anything (I didn't want to name my muffins after anything gross, right?) and this is what I found:
-The word Scobs, meaning scrapings or dross of metal or other rough substances (dictionary.com). That sort of describes the origin of these muffins, which I made one day when I had to scrape together whatever was in my kitchen and try to come up with something edible.
-An archaic variation of scobe, "To scoop out roughly; to make hollow" (Joseph Wright, 1904). With all the fiber in these things, I'd say that fits!
-An American Kennel Club description of cocker spaniel breeds: ASCOB is "any solid color other than black." These muffins are yellow. There you go.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Blend together in a large bowl (if you don't have a stand mixer you can use a giant fork like I did):
1 banana, which can be fresh or overripe
1 to 1 1/4 C vanilla soy milk
1/3 C oil or butter (you're welcome to try a substitute but I can't guarantee the results; this recipe has no eggs so you need something stickyish)

Stir in, one at a time:
2 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt
1 C flour
1/2 C cornmeal
3/4 to 1 C oats

All that stirring should have made your batter nice and smooth, rather than heavy-looking.

Scoop with a 1/4 measuring cup into a greased muffin tin, filling cups 2/3 to 3/4 full, and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

I personally prefer unimposing flavors in the morning, but if you find these muffins to be somewhat bland, try topping them (or slicing them in half and stuffing them) with sliced bananas, strawberries or apples.

-Laura