Dirt Bombs

The compromise between Eric wanting pancakes and me wanting a muffin on Saturday morning. Cake for breakfast! These are excellent. They taste like a sugar-cinnamon cake donut. YUM. The outside had a slight crunch to it too on the first day.

 Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnut Muffins, aka Dirt Bombs
 Recipe from Bon Appetit
 Makes 12

Muffins:
 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp  kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 cup whole milk

Topping & Assembly:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
6 TBS (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Muffins:
 Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin pan Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a medium bowl; set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Beat in egg. With mixer on low speed, add dry ingredients in 3 additions alternating with milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Divide batter among muffin cups and bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a tester inserted into center comes out clean, 30–35 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes in pan, then transfer to a wire rack.

 Topping & Assembly:
 Mix sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Working one at a time, dip tops of muffins in melted butter, then cinnamon sugar.

Chocolate Chip "Pumpkin" Muffins

A cold front came through Austin this weekend and I happily turned on my oven to bake on Saturday. I still have several jars of canned butternut squash from grandma's garden and decided to bake something with pumpkin to take to Stephie's going away party (Steph Goes West Fest). I used a regular ole' recipe something like this. They turned out delicious and reminiscent of my mom's famous pumpkin ring cake.

 I also made a carmelized onion tart that's always a hit.

Stephie's party was really fun, but sadly I forgot to take a single picture! Doh. I brought ingredients to make a Whiskey Smash (bourbon + lemonade + berry juice) and it was a hit. (The berry juice is from grandma's berries! Thanks mom for canning everything.)

Wonderful weekend. We're going to miss you, Steph!

Lemon Raspberry Muffins

These definitely rank in the top tier of muffins I've made (it doesn't hurt that there's a naughty crumble on top of them!). My only complaint is that the muffin stuck a little the liner, but otherwise this is an amazing muffin.

 I used this recipe for Raspberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake Muffins (with lemon streusel crumb topping). My sour cream had gone bad, so I subbed greek yogurt. I had frozen raspberries, so I rolled them in flour before putting them in to prevent bleeding while baking.

Cherry Muffins

3 & 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 & 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt (I actually used 1 scant tsp. kosher salt)
2/3 cup canola oil
1 & 1/2 cups brown sugar, tightly packed (I used light brown)
2 large eggs
1 & 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1 & 1/4 cups buttermilk
2 cups of pitted, coarsely chopped cherries (I ran out of cherries and had to sub some strawberries)

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Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins

Great Excellent* muffins. I love adding instant espresso powder to desserts and baked goods. The result is richer without tasting the espresso. Amy gave me this tip a couple years ago when I was baking brownies and now I'd never bake brownies again without it.

The recipe I used for these muffins is found here.

*Edited this post the next day: These are awesome. They should not be described as "great".

Quinoa Muffins

Yep. Weird right? Quinoa is an awesome grain (full of protein, meaning my brother would give the grain a HUGE thumbs up*), but I would have never thought to put it into a muffin.

I read Angry Chicken a lot, and she posted a Martha Stewart recipe for the muffins recently.

I liked them a lot. They taste super healthy (they pretty much are) and turned out very dense. I was into the denseness.

Some mornings I sliced the muffin in half, cut off the two "ends", and toasted the pieces. I spread peanut butter on the pieces and ate them with a big glass of milk (and sometimes even a banana.) The protein and fiber combo make this incredibly filling and I wasn't hungry for lunch early like I always am.



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*My brother, at least since he was in high school, has been fixated on eating lots of protein. He always claimed it would help him "get huge". He was mostly joking, but I still hear that phrase occasionally. Once I was eating something high in protein and my brother said "Oh Mooch! Good choice, that will help you get huge!". (!?! no thanks.)

sunday muffins.

In grad school I would bake a bran "muffin-loaf" every couple weeks to eat for breakfast. I own muffin pans now, so I finally baked them as muffins.

I always use this recipe, but I use applesauce instead of oil and use half whole-wheat flour and half regular. I also cut back slightly on the sugar because I like to slice the muffins in half and press them into natural cane sugar + cinnamon.

I had a lonely carrot in the fridge, so I shredded him and threw him in there.

homemade english muffins.

so easy to make! thanks to Amy for the recipe and letting me borrow the muffin rings.