A Long Long Time Ago, in a Kitchen Far Away (Mocha Muffins)

 

I made these muffins a long time ago.  So long ago, it happened while I was pregnant.  Which is a long time ago, since my kiddo is now cruising (though unsteadily and slowly) along the furniture.

What's out there, mom?

Anyway, I made these to take with us on our trip to Cape Cod last summer.  They're everything that a great muffin should be, moist and rich, with a nutty crunch from the pecans.  They'd be perfect with some french vanilla coffee for a tasty weekend morning, sitting outside before the heat hits, sharing the first hours of the day with those you love.  The recipe is from Tate's Bake Shop, and like everything Kathleen King makes, they're perfect.

Single Digits (Caribbean Banana Muffins)

It's 10 am and it's officially the end of my third week for this last quarter of school.  That means that in 8 more weeks, I'll be a nurse.  Well, I'll at least be done with nursing school and getting ready to pass the boards.  But I'll be done with school, which is really what I'm looking forward to as I stare at the mound of work and textbooks on my desk.

Eight weeks!  When we all went to school on the very first day, I started a weekly countdown.  We went from 52 weeks to 8 weeks in the blink of an eye.  It's an ever widening ray of hope in this cold and dreary winter.

I left my heart in San Francisco... (Maple Pumpkin Muffins)

...and thankfully not my luggage!

Hubster and me

We're back from the city by the bay.  It was a blast out there, despite the fact that I got sunburned.  Sunburned!  I thought San Francisco was supposed to foggy!!  Honestly, though, if the only thing I have to whine about is nice weather, you can tell how much fun we had.  I also had something really interesting happen for the first time while we were there.

At the tailgate before the game, we were sitting around the tables eating and drinking.  Someone cracked a joke, and one of the people at my table laughed and started to choke.  This person happened to be sitting beside me, and I immediately leaned over and assisted them while they unstuck the food that was stuck in their throat.  It seemed like a pretty natural reaction, and though I can't take credit for performing any sort of life saving intervention, the person did thank me for keeping her calm and instructing her how  to cough productively.  (Very glamorous, I know.)  

While this was going on, people at the other table came over and starting asking if the person was ok.  In the midst of this, I heard someone from my table tell them, "Don't worry, she's a nurse."

Whoa.

They were talking about me!!  Me!!  A nurse!  People thought I was a nurse!

OK, so even though that's not technically true (I have about 5 months and several gazillion exams to pass first), we do joke around that I'm at least 'half a nurse'.  But these strangers didn't know that.  I had been mistaken for an honest to goodness healthcare professional.

:-D

The little things make me happy.

Little things = Happy

Now that we're back home and it's been rainy and gross for a while, it's definitely time for some fall yumminess.  The day before I left, my clinical group had lunch at Reading Terminal Market.  Some of us got dessert from The Flying Monkey Bakery, which if you're in the Philadelphia area you need to check out.  It's all the way in the back of the market, between the sushi place and the fish counter.  They have the most delicious sugary treats.  I had a maple pumpkin gob with the most amazing cream cheese frosting in the middle.   That was my inspiration.  

However, everyone makes gobs this time of year, and I wanted to do something a little different.  These muffins are the perfect rainy day treat when you want a snack with your tea!

Maple Pumpkin Muffins

(Whatever you do, don't forget the brown sugar in the pumpkin mixture.  No good.  Also, I didn't use cupcake papers because I may or may not have made a first batch sans brown sugar that stuck horribly to the paper.)

4 oz cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons maple flavoring

2 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

1-1/4 cup pumpkin puree

Beat the cream cheese, 2 tablespoon brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of maple flavoring until well mixed.  Keep in the fridge until you're ready to use.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and baking soda.  Mix the remaining brown sugar, maple flavor, eggs, oil, milk and pumpkin until blended.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated.  Fill 12 greased muffin tins 2/3 with the pumpkin batter.  Drop 1 teaspoon of the chilled cream cheese mixture onto the batter; top with 2 tablespoons pumpkin batter so that the cream cheese is complete covered.  Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

Share with your sister for taking good care of your dog while you were gone. 

You might have to share with the dog, too.

When life hands you bananas... (Banana Cup-fins)

Make some cupfins!

I had some brown bananas, left over from my first Cooking for Canines experiment.  (More of those to come, hopefully in the upcoming week.)  I have a fantastically easy recipe for banana bread that seems to be a big hit with everyone (including my former boss - I'm still required to take him two loaves every Christmastime) but honestly, another loaf of banana bread sounded so boring.  Also, since this week was our return to school (ahhh!  where did all this reading come from?) I wanted something that was relatively easy to grab and go.  I thought about banana bread muffins, but I wanted to try a few different things with them.  

The end result tastes pretty delish, but is a little heavier than I anticipated.  If I was going to make them again, I would probably either 1) substitute baking soda for the baking powder, which should work because of the yogurt, or 2) use self-rising flour, or 3) eliminate the almond flour, which in my opinion tends to be a little heavier than regular wheat flour.  The result that I got was flat on top, like a cupcake, but heavier and substantial, like a muffin.  Hence, my sister dubbed them "cupfins", which was cute enough to stick.

Since the little buggers had flat tops, I decide that they needed something to dress them up.  Fortunately, I had a cabinet full of peanut butter and a fridge full of cream cheese.  They met, fell in love, and took up residence on top of my cute little cupfins.  Yum!

Banana Cupfins 

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder (see above)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 bananas, pureed

5 tablespoons vanilla yogurt

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla; beat until smooth.  Stir in the bananas. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Add half the flour mixture to the banana mixture, then half the yogurt, then the rest of the flour, then the rest of the yogurt.  Mix well but do not over beat.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, until pick inserted inside comes out clean.  Cool completely before frosting, but you can eat the plain muffins warm - they are already pretty good.

Peanut Butter Icing

4 ounces cream cheese

1/2 cup peanut butter

1-1/4 cup powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and peanut butter until completely incorporated.  Add the powdered sugar, beat until stiff.  Store in the refrigerator.

Turtles and Muffins (Strawberry Colada Muffins)

(Like the new look? I got creative today!)

So cute when they're little!

Hubby and I had a day off together yesterday, and we spent it at the shore. We found this little guy on the sand down by the water. Adorably awesome! I wanted to keep him, by Bob made me send him back to the sea...

Inspired by the turtle, I found my recipe for caramel-chocolate-pecan brownies, and I was all set to make turtles for turtles, but honestly...it's hot. It's not the kind of weather for 15 pound, buttery brownies. So I was instead inspired by the sand and the surf (OK, so we live in New Jersey, and the surf isn't like "surf", but well, ya know...) and I felt that we needed something tropical to nom on. Luckily, on the same page in my big blue binder o' recipes, was a muffin recipe. I pulled out my trusty glass bowl, grabbed the coconut from the top shelf of the cabinet and - voila - strawberry colada muffins!




Strawberry Colada Muffins
(This recipe makes the BEST muffins I've ever had, soft and moist and delicious, so sometimes I use it for other kinds of muffins. I used my new jumbo muffin pan and made 6, but you can easily use the standard 12 cup pan and have a dozen.)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
strawberry jam
1/4 cup coconut
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil


Combine coconut, 1 tbsp flour, brown sugar and 1 tbsp oil in a small bowl until thoroughly mixed; set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, combine egg, milk and oil, add at once to dry ingredients and stir only until dry ingredients are moist. Spoon into muffin cups to 1/3 full. Drop 1 tsp-1tbsp jam into the center, cover and seal with remaining batter until 2/3 full. Top with 1 tbsp of the coconut mixture, pat down into the batter. Bake at 375 for 16-20 minutes.

Nom nom nom! :-)