Woodstar Muffins

I have resisted the urge to write about this topic all semester long...until now. I did not want to write a cheesy or overdone blog post about a certain food that I absolutely love, but I went to Woodstar again on Friday morning with a friend and I knew the minute I bit in that I had to write a blog post about it. This "it" are the muffins at Woodstar Cafe in downtown Northampton. I have honestly never had better muffins in my whole life. I have sampled quite a few of them including classic blueberry, low fat berry, sunflower pear, vegan and gluten free fitness muffin, raspberry oatmeal, banana chocolate chip, and poppyseed. Wow, I guess have sampled quite a few of these muffins...

The fitness muffin (left) and a raspberry oatmeal muffin (right)

This past Friday morning I had my current favorite, which is called the fitness muffin. At first, I was extremely sceptical. How can a muffin be vegan and gluten free? And better question: how can a muffin be good if it is vegan and gluten free? But one day I was in the mood for carrot cake and since the fitness muffin has a carrot base, I thought I would give it a try. The top is crunchy and dense which when removed from the top pulls off of the moist bottom, leaving some bits of the moist muffin center attached. It has a pleasant mixture of spices. I can identify nutmeg, cinnamon, and possibly all spice but there must be more then just three. There are pump raisins dispersed through out. They seem as if they have been soaked in some sort of liquid because they are so full that you can barely see that they are wrinkly (a classic characteristic of raisins). The raisins are surrounded by walnut pieces and pieces of shredded carrot. If you look hard enough you can also find small chunks of pineapple, which I assume are in there to make the muffin sweeter. But, don't worry - this is not an overly chunky muffin. There are definitely a range of textures, which makes the muffin interesting, but the undertone of the apple sauce that I assuming holds the muffin together and adds the majority of the sweetness to the muffin, ties the whole thing together quite nicely.

Long story, short - go to Woodstar and buy yourself a muffin! You won't regret it!