Sounds like a recipe out of The Stepford Wives cookbook doesn’t it? Well in reality, it doesn’t work either apparently. "Celebrity Natural-Food Chef" Bethenny Frankel, from the annoying popular reality show The Real Housewives of New York City, has launched her own line of Vegan muffins from her health-conscious cookie company, "Bethenny Bakes." Yesterday, New York Magazine was given the sampler pack of Almond Lemon Poppy-Seed Muffins, Low-Fat Fudge Chocolate-Chip Muffins, and Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Icing; needless to say, the results were less than favorable. The Chocolate-Chip Muffins left someone asking "where are the chocolate chips?" while others described the Almon Lemon Poppy-Seed muffins as "dry and sandy." Here’s what they had to say at NYmag.com:
Almond Lemon Poppy-Seed Muffins
Dry and sandy — not even soy milk or “vegan vegetable shortening” can make this muffin moist.
“Tastes like pot!”
“I’m waiting to get to the nuts.”
“Feels like a bran muffin.”
“Crumbly, but lemony, like a Hostess Fruit Pie.”
Ouch. All the money and experience this woman has, and she’s being compared to Hostess? And pot?? That’s pretty rough. Although according to New York Magazine staffers, the coconut cupcakes had very tasty icing…but the rest tasted like "suntan lotion." While that’s definitely not a rave review, in the meantime, we can scrape. Click here to read the full reviews from New York Magazine. Now I’m not one to judge before tasting, so I plan on ordering some from her website to find out for myself, even though $34.98 is a lot to pay for something that supposedly tastes like sand.
Oddly enough, while watching Desperate Housewives online a few months ago, I came across something called "BakeSpace," where you can get recipes from the show’s characters. I happened to find "Orange-Blossom Muffins" by Marcia Cross’ character, Bree. I made them (even though I’m not a great baker) and they were actually really good. So I guess the moral of the story is: Desperate Housewives can make muffins and Real Housewives can make reservations.
