In the world of cooking, there are two kinds of people — recipe followers and total improvisers.

In my own experience, women often tend to be more of the former and men the latter. My brother, for one, astounds me with his ability to turn a few fridge items into a gourmet meal. I once watched him turn a package of Mr. Noodles into something restaurant worthy, just on a whim.

Me, I am a recipe follower through and through, though I aspire to be more of a free spirit in the kitchen. For those of us for whom it doesn’t come naturally, I think it just takes years of experience to learn how to fly by the seat of our pants with ingredients. Once you’ve made things a zillion times, you learn to add or subtract, to tweak and to substitute. It’s a learning process.

Take muffins, for example. I’ve been making them since I was a kid. But it’s taken me this long to start paying attention to what makes up a muffin recipe and how I can deviate from the ones I use and — imagine! — begin to fathom that I could make muffins on my own without a recipe at all.

There’s actually a very cool cookbook of sorts out there on this very topic. Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman, came out last year. Just the kind of thing a wannabe renegade like me needs, it outlines the basic ingredient proportions required to make everything from cookies (one part sugar, two parts fat, three parts flour) to, yes, muffins (two parts flour, two parts liquid, one part egg). Makes you want to roll up your sleeves and get playing around, doesn’t it?

And so, speaking of muffins, today I bring you a favourite recipe, one that I have fiddled with to great degrees. I have substituted all manner of berries and fruit and chocolate chips for the Saskatoon berries (which I have never actually used); I have used the called-for spelt flour but also subbed in whole wheat or Red Fife; I’ve used yogurt or plugged in buttermilk or regular milk instead; I frequently replace the sugar with maple syrup. And if I don’t have a lemon around, orange zest is just as nice, or none at all. The staple, though, is the Red River Cereal, which makes the muffins dense and almost crunchy.

One of the things I love about this recipe is that it reliably makes 12 good-sized muffins. (Nothing is more annoying than a muffin recipe that leaves you with one or two empty holes in your tin. Or makes a dozen dinky little things. Am I right?)

This recipe comes from the now defunct Wish magazine. It’s a keeper and a great way to use frozen berries you put away last summer.

Red River Cereal & Saskatoon Berry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup spelt flour

1 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup Red River Cereal

2 eggs

¾ cup plain yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

2 cups Saskatoon berries (or berries of your choice)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Combine flours, sugar, baking soda, powder, salt and cereal in a large bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, yogurt, vegetable oil, vanilla and lemon zest.

4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Gently fold in berries.

5. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling to the top. Bake for approximately 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out dry.

Dinah Murdoch is a Kitchener writer. You can contact her by email at dinahmurdoch@yahoo.com