Day 31 - Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Today I decided to make a nice warm breakfast treat - chocolate chip muffins! It's starting to feel like fall [already] and nothing beats a nice warm muffin for breakfast with a cup of coffee! Keep in mind chocolate chip muffins certainly are a treat for a special occasion - you can't always have chocolate for breakfast :)

This recipe was so easy and I had all of the ingredients on hand! I literally whipped up the batter, baked the muffins and cleaned up in less than an hour. All this recipe takes is 2 bowls - one for the dry ingredients [flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder]; and one for the wet ingredients [sour cream, milk, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla]. I combined the wet and dry ingredients together, added the chocolate chips and they were ready to be put into the muffin tins!

After about 20 minutes the muffins were ready to come out. They looked and smelled great.

Finished Product!

I tried one warm and it was pretty good- I mean you can't beat melted chocolate. The only thing is that you probably have to serve them warm because when they cool down there will be whole chocolate chunks, which might not be as good when they aren't melted. The other thing I wasn't crazy about was that the muffin itself wasn't all that flavorful without the chocolate.

Day 27 - Doughnut Muffins & Sheet Cookies

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Today I decided to make muffins for the family this morning. I found a recipe called "Doughnut Muffins" that I found on a blog called "How To: Simplify."They are cinnamon muffins with a cinnamon sugar coating. 

The recipe was super simple. I mixed the dry ingredients first: flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon and in a separate bowl I mixed the wet ingredients: oil, an egg, milk and sugar. I combined the wet and dry ingredients and the batter was ready. 

The muffins baked at 350 for about 20 minutes and as they baked I prepared the cinnamon and sugar topping. I melted a bit of butter in a bowl and mixed the cinnamon and sugar in a separate bowl. When the muffins came out of the oven, I immediately removed them from the muffin tins and dipped the top in the melted butter and then rolled them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. 

Now I have to admit, when I saw that the muffins are dipped in melted butter, I was a little bit skeptical because frankly it sounds disgusting. But I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the muffins didn't get butter soaked but it just helped the cinnamon and sugar create a nice crust (thats where the doughnut part comes in).

The muffins were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. They were delicious! I know everyone will love these today. My only regret would be not doubling the batter because it really only makes 12 muffins. 

The next thing I made came as a surprise.. my mom Maria's sheet cookies. She is making them for my cousins wedding because he and his soon to be wife love them. My mom has been making these for as long as I can remember and I figured I would help out this time and lean the specifics of how they are made. 

We started by preparing the bottom of the cookie which is made of saltine crackers. I put one layer of the saltines on two large cookie sheets while my mom melted butter with sugar on the stove. Once the butter and sugar are melted together they are then poured over the saltines and placed in a 375 degree oven until the sugar and butter start to bubble and brown. 

When the crackers come out of the oven we topped them with semi-sweet chocolate chips. We place the cookie sheets back into the oven just so the chocolate melts a bit and is spreadable. We finish the cookies by making sure the chocolate is spread evenly over the crackers and then top it with chopped walnuts. The cookies are refrigerated until they are ready to be cut and served. They are the perfect salty and sweet treat that everyone loves.

Day 24 - Millionaires Shortbread & Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Ok so I have totally been slacking in the blog department. Not only have I been busy but I'll admit that I've been a little unmotivated to bake - thats what nice weather does to me! I have been feeling a bit guilty for not blogging so I want to make a commitment to doing this every week again, even if I only bake one item each Sunday!

So today I decided to start with a bang and bake 2 items. First up is something called "Millionaires Shortbread." It's essentially a layered bar made with shortbread, caramel, and chocolate. I saw this being made on the Food Network by Claire Robinson and it looked really simple and delicious!

First, I started with the shortbread layer which was just made by mixing, flour, sugar and salt with butter. This comes together easily and I pressed the mixture into a square pan. The shortbread layer baked for 20 minutes and then sat out to cool before the other layers were added.

While the shortbread was in the oven, I made the "caramel" layer. This is made by heating sweetened condensed milk with butter until it thickens and darkens in color. This layer is then poured over the shortbread. For the final step, I melted some milk chocolate and poured it over the caramel layer.

Now that the bars were complete I put them in the refrigerator to harden and cool for later!

Finished bars - ready to enjoy!

Next, I decided to make blueberry coffee cake muffins. Joanne has actually made these before and raved about how delicious they were so I decided I had to try them for myself.

First, I creamed together the sugar and butter until it was smooth and combined. Then I added the rest of the wet ingredients: eggs, vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl I sifted together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. I slowly added the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients to create a thick batter. Finally, I folded in the blueberries to complete the muffin mixture. Then they were ready for the oven!

The muffins baked for about 25 minutes and came out looking and smelling great! I sampled one right away and it was delicious! The muffin was moist and had the perfect amount of blueberries in it. I would definitely make these again!

Just out of the oven

Ready to eat!

Stay tuned for next week…

Day 13 - Coffee Cake Muffins

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Today is part 2 of Muffin baking! We decided to make coffee cake muffins. The recipe was super easy and super delicious! The batter consisted of flour, unsalted butter, salt, vanilla, baking powder, sugar and eggs. We also made a streusel mixture which consisted of brown sugar, unsalted butter and flour [we forgot to add the cinnamon… even though it was out on the counter! Too much talking and not enough paying attention!].

In the muffin tins you put a small scoop of the muffin batter, top it with the streusel mixture and repeat so you have two layers of batter and two layers of streusel.

The muffins puffed up and became huge in the oven [perhaps we put a bit too much batter in each cup?!] When the muffins came out we had to work to get them out of the tins and onto the cooling rack. We used a baking spray to be sure the muffins didn't stick to the pan but it didn't work very well. In the future we would suggest butter and flour for the pan- it always does the trick!

In any case, the muffins were buttery and delicious [even if they were slightly deformed since they didn't exactly come out of the muffin tins in one piece!]. The streusel was crunchy and gave the muffin a nice sweetness and the muffin itself was really moist.

Stay tuned for next week!!

Day 12 - Classic Blueberry Muffins

Sunday, January 23, 2011

This Sunday I decided to try out a muffin recipe. I started with the classic, blueberry muffin [who doesn't like that?!]. The batter was a basic muffin batter with all of the expected ingredients [flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, salt and of course blueberries] and each muffin was topped with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. The recipe was actually called "Double Blueberry Muffins" because you smash 3/4 of the blueberries with a fork and mix them into the batter and then fold in the rest of the blueberries at the end so they stay whole - this makes for an exceptional blueberry muffin with a variety of textures.

Blueberry Muffin Batter

 Before going in the oven with the cinnamon sugar topping

Just out of the oven

Finished product!

The muffins came out delicious. They weren't too sweet and the cinnamon sugar made for a nice crunchy topping. The blueberry flavor pops in your mouth as you take a bite making for the perfect, breakfast or snack [especially with a glass of cold milk!].

Part 2 of Muffins is coming next week with a Coffee Cake muffin. Stay tuned…