Dr. Oetker Organic Muffin Mix and If You Care Baking Cups

If you like muffins (and who doesn't?), we suggest checking out Dr. Oetker Organics Muffin Mixes.

After all, muffins are good and organic things are good, ipso facto organic muffins must be even better.

Where many baking recipes and mixes contain daunting amounts of butter or other fattening ingredients, the Dr. Oetker Organics Muffin Mixes require only milk, a single egg and two tablespoons of oil to produce a dozen delicious muffins.

(The mix itself contains no fat or cholesterol, according to the Nutrition Facts info on the box.)

Not only are practically all the listed Dr. Oetker Organics Muffin Mix ingredients organic, but the box itself is apparently made from 100% recycled paper fibers.

Dr. Oetker Organics Muffin Mix comes in a wide variety of flavors, but we've only had a chance to try the Apple Cinnamon and Carrot varieties, of which we definitely prefer the Apple Cinnamon. (The that Carrot was horrible, it was just a bit...subtle, and besides, we're suckers for cinnamon.)

Unfortunately, our enjoyment of the muffins was marred by the laborious clean-up stage. Even using a non-stick muffin pan, we spent ages scrubbing and soaking in an effort to clean off baked muffin bits.

Fortunately, we found If You Care's line of 100% Unbleached Baking Cups on a trip to our local cooking supply store. Made in Sweden, these cups require no greasing and their manufacturing process involves no chlorine. If You Care has a nice page on their website detailing why the whole no-chlorine-bleaching aspect is important.

Buying single-use products can often be wasteful, but in this case we feel the unbleached baking cups actually can help the planet by saving loads of water and soap (especially the water) by truncating an otherwise lengthy washing process.

Where to buy:

Dr. Oetker Organics Muffin Mixes (along with other organic Dr. Oetker products) can be purchased online directly through Dr. Oetker's online store (2-pack for $6.78, 12-pack for $38.65) or from e-tailers like Amazon.com (12-pack for for $33.60).

We didn't see a Store Finder page on Dr. Oetker's website, but the products are certainly available offline. We found our muffin mixes in the baking aisle at Whole Foods.

As for the If You Care baking cups, we found ours at a Brooklyn cookware story called A Cook's Companion ($2.75 for a box of 60 cups). If Brooklyn isn't a convenient shopping destination for you, you can also find these baking cups through Amazon.com if you're willing to buy in bulk ($38.88 for 24 boxes of 60 cups. That's just $1.62 per box and should keep you covered for several years of muffin baking unless you're running a bakery.)

UK shoppers can order If You Care baking cups through Ethical Superstore, while a site called Ellie's Eco Home Store seems to carry single boxes of the baking cups for $1.95 each. Surf around any of the major search engines and you should be able to find other e-tailers selling these handy baking cups.