Baked Sunday Mornings: Honey Corn Muffins

I'm back with another Baked Sunday Mornings post today! This time around, we made Honey Corn Muffins, an easy, delicious muffin if ever there was one. Perfect for breakfast, lunch, or as an accompaniment with dinner, these little cuties taste like cornbread with a glossy sheen from the honey. They're good at room temperature, but they're phenomenal when they're warm.

I have really grown to love cornbread lately, but making these muffins made me realize something; I think I like my cornbread savory, rather than sweet. These were scrumptious, don't get me wrong. But I had to think of them like a sweet muffin in order to fully embrace them. When I thought of them as a corn muffin, I found myself wishing I had cut down the sweetness in the recipe. If I make these again, I think I will still add the honey, but omit the brown sugar. I just don't think they need both.

I'm really glad I made these; otherwise, if it weren't for the blogging group, I may have overlooked them completely. And that would have been a shame! To see if the other members of the group liked these, head on over to the blogroll, here.

CEIMB: Apple Pecan Muffins

Wow, I almost completely spaced on this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly this week! I must really still be on vacation or something! But I managed to pull it together long enough to snap some photos of this week's recipe, Apple Pecan Muffins, chosen by Joanne of Apple Crumbles.

If you're wondering how I could have produced muffins to photograph when I could barely even manage to remember to post about them, the answer is very simple. I always, always have these muffins on hand in my house. Out of all of Ellie Krieger's recipes that I have tried (and I've probably tried over a hundred by now), this one is the hands-down household fave. In fact, my husband eats two every single work day! I freeze single and double batches of these muffins, so that he can easily thaw and tote some to work each and every day. I've even tried varying the basic formula, but he just likes the muffins the way Ellie intended them; no bells and whistles are needed here! It's probably the first recipe I've ever committed to memory; I could crank these puppies out in my sleep by now. One quick note: I can usually get at least 15 muffins per batch, rather than the yield of 12 listed in the book.

It's been about 3 years now since the first time I have made the Apple Pecan Muffins, and I still have not been able to bake my husband a muffin that he prefers over these. So I probably would have eventually chosen these as my weekly pick, but Joanne beat me to it! I'm so glad the group is finally making these, because in my opinion the whole world should know about these! Thanks to these muffins, I am no longer afraid to eat apple in baked goods. Not only that, but they've taught me how to transform any old muffin recipe into a lower-fat version, and for that I will always be grateful to Ellie.

If you made these muffins this week, I'm dying to hear how you liked them! Everybody's results can be found by heading over to the blogroll, here. And for the full, glorious recipe, you can go to Food Network's website and find it here.

A Week of Muffins: Cherry Craisin-Wheat Germ Muffins

I'm closing out this week of muffins with what turned out to be my favorite of the bunch: Cherry Craisin-Wheat Germ Muffins. It's surprising, really. I definitely did not expect the muffin that sounded the healthiest, and let's fact it, the blah-est of the five, to be the one I favored. That's exactly what ended up happening, though! I absolutely loved these muffins; the best was saved for last.

These are extremely simple; none of the ingredients are wild or bizarre. The dried cherries were the only component I altered in the slightest; I opted to use cherry-flavored dried cranberries instead, because I just really like dried cranberries. There's a good amount of wheat germ in the batter, but you really don't taste it at all. It makes the muffins bulkier, and more filling, but it doesn't make them taste like health muffins or anything. There's also a small amount of allspice in there, which I believe gives the muffins a little special something else.

Thanks for bearing with me during my vacation week; next week I'm actually going to be gone, too. But at least this way I was able to still put some new material up on the blog for part of the time. Be sure to check back with me the first weekend in June, though! I'll be back with a bunch of stuff I had made prior to vacation, just waiting to be shared with you!

Cherry Craisin Wheat-Germ Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
6.75 oz. (about 1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cherry-flavored Craisins
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Nonstick cooking spray

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 7 ingredients (through allspice) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Make a well in the center of the mixture.

2. Combine buttermilk, oil, and egg in a separate small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups, and coat liners with cooking spray (I simply sprayed my muffin tins, with no muffin-cup liners, and it worked fine). Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

4. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

A Week of Muffins: Pistachio-Chai Muffins

Marching on with our week filled with diverse, delicious muffins, we'll discuss Pistachio-Chai muffins today! These muffins are the only ones out of this whole week's worth that contain nuts. We love pistachios, and I don't think I've ever made a muffin with pistachios in them until now. I have to say, they really work great. They're slightly salty, even though I bought the raw, pre-shelled kind, and it was a nice contrast to the sweet muffin.

Unlike Martha Stewart's Chai Cupcakes, which I made not too long ago, these enlist the use of the contents of a couple of chai tea bags. With Martha's cupcakes, you infused the milk that went into the cake batter with black tea, then added into the dry ingredients the usual spices you would find in a chai tea. So, the end results are actually pretty different. With these muffins, you can see little flecks of the tea leaves running through the batter, and in the finished product. Plus, these are even more dense than the cupcakes were, and those cupcakes were on the denser side.

That's not to say these muffins are bad, though; on the contrary, they're great if you're looking for something that tastes vastly different from your run-of-the-mill muffin. The tea makes it taste exotic; the nuts give it a nice texture. One note: there's a simple powdered sugar glaze in the recipe for these; you'll notice in my pictures that I left that off my muffins. I was trying to cut down on the sugar, but feel free to try the glaze for yourself.

Pistachio-Chai Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
7.9 oz. (about 1 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 chai blend tea bags, opened
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
2 Tbsp. Smart Balance Light Buttery Spread, melted
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, divided
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Nonstick cooking spray
1/3 cup shelled, dry-roasted pistachios, chopped
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp. water

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Cut open tea bags; add tea to flour mixture, stirring well.

2. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Combine buttermilk, butter, Smart Balance, vanilla, and egg in a separate bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in a muffin tin and spray each with nonstick cooking spray (I simply sprayed my muffin tin with spray, which worked fine). Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle nuts evenly over batter. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before turning the muffins out onto a cooling rack.

4. Combine the remaining 1/2 tsp. vanilla, powdered sugar, and 1 Tbsp. water, stirring until smooth. Drizzle evenly over the muffins.

A Week of Muffins: Bacon-Cheddar Corn Muffins

The third muffin this week is a bit of a departure from the others, because it is a savory one rather than a sweet one. I was pretty excited about these Bacon-Cheddar Corn Muffins, since they really are so different from any muffin I would normally make. They're similar to cornbread, with that same grainy texture that comes from baking with cornmeal. The bacon is chopped finely so you can ensure many small bits are well incorporated throughout. There's a decent amount of shredded cheddar cheese in there, which of course is delicious with the bacon. Then, for an extra little something, you throw in a finely diced jalapeno pepper for heat.

Despite my excitement about making these, I was disappointed to discover that my husband was not the biggest fan of these. I thought a savory muffin would be right up his alley, but he told me that when he eats a muffin, he expects it to taste sweet. So in other words, biting into these was a bit of a letdown for him. As for me, I really loved them! They're best warm from the oven, and I know they'd be great with a little pat of butter to spread on them, though I ate them plain. They're not overwhelmingly spicy if that scares you (and obviously you could just leave out the jalapeno altogether), just slightly kick-y. These would be equally great with some kalamata olives tossed in to replace the hot pepper. And if the idea of a savory muffin is daunting to you, as it was to my husband, I say you should still bake these, but serve them with a nice soup or chili at dinnertime!

Bacon-Cheddar Corn Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
4.5 oz. (about 1 cup) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup (2 oz.) reduced-fat shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
4 center-cut bacon slices, cooked, drained, and crumbled
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Nonstick cooking spray

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 7 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Stir in bacon and jalapeno; make a well in the center of the mixture.

2. Combine buttermilk, oil, and egg in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups; coat with cooking spray (I simply sprayed my muffin cups, with no liners, and baked them right in the muffin tin, no problems). Divide batter among muffin cups.

4. Bake for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool muffins in tins for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

A Week of Muffins: Tuscan Lemon Muffins

The muffins I'm going to tell you about today are my son's muffins of choice. These Tuscan Lemon Muffins are definitely a top contender for best of this week's muffins. They're delicately sweet, fluffy from the addition of ricotta cheese, and just tart enough to be refreshingly lemony.

Just like with the Chocolate-Pomegranate Muffins from yesterday, I had to make a couple small changes. First, I reduced the amount of granulated sugar in the batter (which turned out to be a wise decision for us; my son doesn't like things terribly sweet and these were just perfect), and then I also reduced the amount of olive oil by just a tablespoon. I find that if I shave off the amount of fat in a recipe just slightly, the results are still strong and I've saved us a couple calories at the same time. I wouldn't go omitting the oil altogether here, because I think the muffins do need some. Though these muffins are delicious, in the future I would definitely increase the amount of lemon zest in the batter. They're great, but I do wish the lemon flavor had provided more of a punch than it did. It's a small complaint, though! Otherwise I would make them again exactly as I did this time; they're already long gone!

Tuscan Lemon Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
7.9 oz. all-purpose flour (1 3/4 cups)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (the original recipe called for 3/4 cup)
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup water
3 Tbsp. olive oil (the original recipe called for 1/4 cup)
1 Tbsp. grated lemon rind
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Nonstick cooking spray
2 Tbsp. turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 3 ingredients (through salt); make a well in the center.

2. Combine the ricotta and the next 5 ingredients (through egg). Add ricotta mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups and coat with cooking spray (I simply sprayed my muffin tins with cooking spray, with no liners, and it worked fine). Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle turbinado sugar evenly over the batter. Bake at 375 for 16 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pans before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

A Week of Muffins: Chocolate-Pomegranate Muffins

This week, my blog's going to be a little bit different. My family and I are traveling to Orlando, Florida to visit Universal Studios, and then Disney World, and we'll be gone 9 days. Initially, I was considering just skipping the idea of doing blog posts at all for the duration of my vacation. After all, what's the point of being on vacation if you're still cranking out 3 or 4 blog posts while you're away? But then I had this brainstorm, and it worked out really well.

In the May 2011 issue of Cooking Light, I found a section on muffins. I love muffins, and I make them quite frequently. Imagine my delight when I was given 5 new muffin recipes in the latest issue of my mag! I couldn't decide which ones I wanted to try; they all sounded so good, and so different from one another. Finally, I took this as a sign that the stars were to align with both these muffins and with my vacation. I decided to bake all 5 of the muffins, and then I could make my vacation week Muffin Week! I just wrote all the blog posts ahead of time, and now I'll be able to publish each one gradually as the week unfolds. And you, as the reader, gets the 5 new muffin recipes, too!

First up: these Chocolate-Pomegranate Muffins. I decided to alter the Cooking Light recipe in a few different ways. It's a fantastic base recipe to play with; feel free to be creative in your version, too. The original recipe called for warm water for most of the liquid in the batter, and then a big handful of mini chocolate chips. Half the chips went into the batter, and the rest were sprinkled on top.

For my variation, I substituted coffee for the half of the water in the batter. I wanted a nice, kicky punch to my muffins. Honestly, I think I could have subbed coffee for all the water, since I did not actually taste coffee in the finished product. I do like to think that it gave the muffins a more intense chocolate flavor, though. As for the mini chips, they still adorned the tops of my muffins. But for inside the batter, I decided to throw in some chocolate covered pomegranate seeds I recently found at Trader Joe's. I loved them in there; they added a bit of fruit, as well as a nice little tangy bite every so often. I'd highly recommend trying to get your hands on some of these, but if you can't find them any dried fruit would be nice in there. Chocolate and fruit for breakfast? What's not to love?

Chocolate-Pomegranate Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
7.9 oz. all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cups)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup warm brewed coffee
1/2 cup warm water (you can use 1 cup coffee and omit the water, too)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup chocolate covered pomegranate seeds (or just use dried pomegranate seeds)
1/4 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips
Nonstick cooking spray

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 5 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk.

2. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Combine the coffee, water, and the next 4 ingredients (through egg) in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Stir in the chocolate covered pomegranate seeds. Add the oil mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups, and coat liners with cooking spray (I coated my muffin tins with cooking spray, omitted the papers, and I was fine). Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups. Sprinkle the 1/4 cup mini chips evenly over the batter.

4. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack before turning them out onto the rack to cool completely.

Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins

I am a big fan of the first Baked cookbook, the one that spawned such hits as the Sweet and Salty Cake, the Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk Chocolate Chunks, the Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl, and the Millionaire's Shortbread. Whenever I want to create a fabulous dessert that will more than likely get people talking, this book is normally the first place I start to look for recipes. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out they were publishing a second cookbook!

Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented is the next offering in the Baked series, and it is a doozy. Thumbing through it when it first arrived at my house, I was amazed that the book's authors (and the bakery the books are named after's owners) managed to think even more outside the box than last time. There are so many amazing recipes that I am already dying to try. There's the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, the Monkey Bubble Bread, and the Grasshopper Bars, just to name a select few. But, since I was going to be baking for a pumpkin-loving houseguest, I decided to make the Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins first out of the book.

It seems like it would be an odd pairing, pumpkin with cheddar cheese. However, I can assure you that this works amazingly well. These muffins are more the savory variety than the sweet; there's only a half cup of brown sugar in the whole recipe. The spices are cayenne and black pepper, rather than the more pie-ish cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. The result is a slightly spicy, complex flavor that really surprises and pleases the palate. They're wonderful straight from the oven, but they keep pretty well, too. I'm glad I broke through my doubt about these muffins, because everybody loved them. I'm excited to see what else the Baked book has in store for me!

Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins
from Baked Explorations
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin puree
3 Tbsp. sour cream
2 large eggs
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cayenne peppers
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 1/4 cups (4 oz.) grated sharp Cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. pumpkin seeds (mine were shelled, roasted, and salted)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly spray each cup of a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and the sour cream. Add eggs and butter, and whisk until combined.

2. In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, and dark brown sugar. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well, and with a large rubber spatula, fold until just combined. Fold in three-quarters of the cheese.

3. Evenly divide the batter among the muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining cheese and the pumpkin seeds evenly over each muffin.

4. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffin pan cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before gently removing muffins from pan. These should be served warm, but they can be made ahead of time and reheated in a 200 degree oven.

Apple Cider Muffins

I had a bunch of apples left over from going apple picking with my boys, and I have been busy putting them to good use! Since we all eat muffins at my house, I finally had an excuse to try out a recipe from one of my baking cookbooks, The Craft of Baking. I love buying a big gallon of fresh apple cider each fall and drinking it warm on occasion, but I find myself with a lot of it that doesn't always get a chance to be used. So, these Apple Cider Muffins seem like a great solution! It utilizes those apples and the apple cider at the same time.



Okay, so the pictures of my boys don't necessarily have anything to do with this recipe, but I think I was overdue to show them off here on the blog! I haven't posted pictures of them in months, and I know there are people who have been wanting me to. So, here they are, eating their mid-afternoon snack, which I believe consisted of Halloween-shaped marshmallows, dried fruit strips, and these muffins. Eclectic!



Now, I wanted to share a little trick with you for making baked goods just a bit healthier. I purchased a bag of ground flax seeds a while back, thinking I'd just look it up later and find creative ways of slipping the flax into things I would make. I knew they were rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, and high in dietary fiber, and that they can even lower your cholesterol. It seemed like a great ingredient to use in place of other, less healthy ones.

As it turns out, you can actually use ground flax seed in place of oil or butter in a baked good recipe! I was floored when I read this on the back of the bag. It's a 3:1 ratio, meaning if a recipe called for 1/2 cup butter, you would use 1 1/2 cups of ground flax seed in its place. I was pretty skeptical about the substitution, because it seemed like it wouldn't work. You're basically replacing a "wet" ingredient with a "dry" ingredient, which seemed doomed to fail. But I practiced this trick on some other muffins I made the week before, by replacing half the fat with flax seeds, and guess what? It really did work!

The flax seeds give the muffin an extra texture and heartiness, as well as some darker flecks that are visible when you bite into it. The muffin was, amazingly, still moist and not heavy like a brick, as I feared it would be. It does taste a bit healthier, if that makes sense, and less indulgent. But I suppose that is the point here, anyway, so it was a welcome flavor!



These muffins are delicious and disappeared very quickly. They were a hit at my house and a hit at Andy's work, too. I'm so glad I've found such an awesome way to incorporate ground flax seed into our diet; we hardly eat any fish at my house, or any other foods that are well-known for their Omega-3s. Now I know we can still sneak it in, and it won't affect the taste! Just one note: the recipe below is written as I made it, not the way the book did. The changes I made are listed, and then the book's original ingredient is listed in parentheses after.


Apple Cider Muffins
adapted from The Craft of Baking
makes 12 muffins, plus 5-6 mini muffins

Ingredients
Unsalted butter or nonstick cooking spray, for greasing muffin tins
3/4 cup granulated sugar (the book used 1 cup)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar (the book used 1 cup)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup applesauce (the book used 3/4 cup grapeseed oil; I used applesauce and flax seed)
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup ground flax seed
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup apple cider
3/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 crisp baking apples, such as Granny Smith or Mutsu, peeled, cored, coarsely grated (I used my food processor with the shredding attachment), and drained, juices reserved and used as part of the cider measurement
1 Tbsp. turbinado sugar (the book used Demerara sugar)


Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter or spray a standard 12-cup muffin tin (plus a mini muffin tin, if using), or line with paper liners (I used paper liners, but the muffins like to stick to those).

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and applesauce. Add the eggs and whisk to combine. In another bowl, sift together the flour, flax seed, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a third bowl, whisk together the apple cider, sour cream, and vanilla.

3. Add one third of the flour mixture and one third of the apple cider mixture to the sugar mixture, folding with a spatula just to combine. Add the rest of the flour and cider mixture in two additions. Fold in the grated apple, and then divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each cup three quarters of the way. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the turbinado sugar.

4. Bake, rotating the muffin tin halfway through, until the muffins spring back to the touch, 25 to 30 minutes (mine took about 3-5 minutes longer). Transfer the pan(s) to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Then turn out the muffins from the pan(s) and let them cool completely on the wire rack. These muffins are best the second day, and will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Oatmeal Zucchini Muffins

So there is a blogging group out there called Tuesdays with Dorie. Once a week, the group makes a selection from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours. Even though I don't belong to the group, there are plenty of blogs I read whose authors do bake along with it. Each Tuesday, I get to drool over the week's selection, looking at beautiful pictures of the baked goods and envying the treats and goodies of others. The truth is, if I did belong to TWD, it would probably cause me to gain 50 pounds. It's hard enough for me to find ways to pawn off the baked goods I already make, and if I had a new one each and every Tuesday, I'm afraid I'd find myself eating most of it myself!

Anyway, I digress. What I am trying to tell you is that after all this time, with me following along with the TWD bakers, I finally decided to make one of the recipes! I kept seeing variations on Dorie Greenspan's Oatmeal Breakfast Bread, which the group made two weeks ago. It looked like a great, healthy way to feed my kids some breakfast, and it sounded like something I would love, too.

The recipe was chosen by Natalie of Oven Love, and she decided to turn her bread into muffins. I thought this would be the way to go, so I made muffins, too. I liked Natalie's idea of substituting a half-cup of the flour in the recipe for whole-wheat. I did that, too. I used dried cranberries in my variation, because the recipe allows you to use pretty much any dried fruit you like. Then, I made the riskiest recipe change of all: I added zucchini.

When I saw the recipe on other bloggers' sites, I had visions of zucchini floating in my head. I had two big, beautiful zucchini (is it zucchini or zucchinis? I don't know!) sitting on my windowsill, and my head always turns to baked goods immediately when I think of how to use ingredients. There are other things I made with the zucchini (which I'll be blogging about soon), but I really wanted to try some in this recipe first. So I did!

The other fun spin I put on these muffins was the pan I used to bake a few of them. I had just purchased a Whoopie Pie Pan from Williams-Sonoma, and I was really excited to take it out for a test drive. I thought, if it'll work for whoopie pies (you know, those fun little sandwich cookies you make by putting a fluffy filling in between two cake-like cookies), it should work for muffins, too. I thought it would be cute to make little muffin tops; they'd be a great size for my younger son, and I'd get to practice using the new pan. That picture above features the cooled muffin tops; I thought they turned out great! Below are the full-size muffins, which I made 16 of.

I'm really glad I thought to use the zucchini in these, because it worked flawlessly. The flavors are similar to those you find in zucchini bread, or even carrot cake, which I always think of as a close cousin to zucchini bread. I really enjoyed the cranberries in there, too. It gave a nice, tart burst to the muffins, which was a nice counterpoint to all the sweetness.

So, even though I am not a part of Tuesdays with Dorie, I am happy to have finally tried out one of Dorie's recipes. I'm definitely interested in trying out some more of her stuff; maybe I can find one of her books at the library or something! Thank you, Natalie, for posting the recipe and for providing me with inspiration and ideas on how to make these muffins so good. Below, I have provided the recipe as I made it, along with a link to Natalie's post about the bread (muffins).

Oatmeal Zucchini Muffins
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Oatmeal Breakfast Bread
makes about 20 muffins (I made 16 muffins and 8 muffin tops)

Ingredients
For the topping:
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

For the muffins:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup flavorless oil, such as canola or safflower
1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1/3 cup dried, sweetened cranberries (Craisins)
1 cup oats (old-fashioned or quick oats, I used a bit of each)
2 cups lightly packed, finely grated zucchini, squeezed to release excess liquid

Directions
1. Place rack in the center of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees. Spray your muffin tins (or whoopie pie pan!) with nonstick cooking spray.

2. In a small bowl, use your fingers to toss together the sugar, nuts, and cinnamon until evenly mixed. Set aside to use as your topping.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, applesauce, oil, and milk until well blended.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Remove 1/2 tsp. of the mix and toss it with the cranberries, just to coat; set aside. Stir the oats into the large bowl. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and, using a large rubber spatula, stir just until everything is evenly moistened. Do not overmix. Stir in the zucchini, then scatter the cranberries over the batter and stir to blend.

5. Divide the batter evenly among your muffin tins or whoopie pie pans, if using. Evenly sprinkle the topping mixture over each muffin, pressing gently so the topping sticks.

6. Bake for 20-24 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean (the muffin tops take about 12-16 minutes). Transfer the tins to a rack to cool for about 10 minutes, then remove the muffins from the tins. Continue to cool the muffins on the racks. Serve at room temperature. The muffins will keep well in an airtight container for 3-4 days.

Honey Lime Oat Muffins

This is one recipe that I probably should have posted a long time ago. I've been making these muffins for about two years now; they were the first muffins Xander ever tried. He usually wouldn't eat muffins because they tended to have chunks of fruit (like blueberry or raspberry, etc.) in them, and he's totally weird about chunks being in his muffins. Okay, if we're being honest here, he gets that weird chunk trait from me. But I am getting better with it, really! Him, on the other hand...well, we're still working on it.

So these muffins are great because they do not contain chunkiness, unless you count the oats, which are softened before going into the batter. I love how healthy these are. I like to use some whole-wheat flour as well as all-purpose, to give it a sturdier texture. The oats are fantastic in the muffin, too, because they really add substance to something which sometimes isn't the most filling food in the world. I mean, I love muffins as much as the next baker, which can be a problem sometimes when one muffin can be a caloric nightmare. Let alone two in one sitting, or three, or...you get the point. But these muffins are delicious and nutritious. Win-win!

The best part of all, though, is how crowd-pleasing they are. As I said, these were the first muffins Xander would ever eat, and now Evan loves them, although he's more of a muffin connoisseur than Xander was at his age. He's not nearly as picky; if it's been baked from scratch, he'll pretty much eat it! Bless him. If food is love, then he's been showered with love by me lately.

The kids like them plain, and they are wonderful that way. You can really taste the honey, as well as the little flecks of lime zest that dot the whole muffin. The whole-wheat flour is present, but not overwhelmingly noticeable, and they are moist despite the lack of fat in the recipe. Using yogurt in muffins is genius; it really keeps them healthy, yet the texture is still that of a muffin. You know, instead of a rock or something.

What really takes them over the top, though, if you are so inclined, is the lime glaze. It is so simple; it's just a powdered sugar glaze with lime zest and lime juice. I dipped the tops of a couple while they were still warm, and just let the glaze harden before we ate them. It drips down the sides before it sets, and just gives it an extra citrus-y punch that is irresistible. Yum!

This method doesn't work so well if you are planning to make the muffins ahead of time, though. That's why, most of the time, I forgo it. Once the muffins have been pre-glazed, they begin to very slowly soak up the glaze. By the next day, the tops of the muffins are wet and shiny, and you can no longer distinctly taste the glaze. Not that this is not tasty, but it totally ruins the effect! So I recommend saving the glaze for special occasions, or company.

Honey Lime Oat Muffins

adapted from Recipezaar

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

For the Muffins:

1 cup plain yogurt (I used non-fat)

1 cup old-fashioned oats (not instant)

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup milk

2 Tbsp. butter, melted (Smart Balance 50/50 Blend works fine, too)

2 tsp. lime zest (I zest 1 whole lime)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole-wheat or whole-wheat pastry flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

For the Glaze:

3/4 cup powdered sugar

4 tsp. lime juice

1 tsp. lime zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

2. Combine oats, yogurt, honey, milk, butter, and lime zest in a large bowl. Mix well and let sit for at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine all the remaining muffin ingredients except for the egg whites, mixing well.

3. Stir egg whites into yogurt mixture, mixing well. Add flour mixture to yogurt mixture; mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Divide batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups.

4. Bake for 20-24 minutes (I actually bake for 22), until light golden-brown on top. Let muffins cool slightly, about 10 minutes, and then turn them out onto a cooling rack.

5. While the muffins are cooling for 10 minutes, prepare glaze: combine powdered sugar, lime juice, and lime zest with a whisk, until sugar is dissolved and all ingredients are well combined.

6. Dip muffin tops in glaze, and allow the glaze to harden slightly before serving.

A Success and a Kinda Failure

The above picture shows a mishy-mosh of baked goods I dabbled in over the weekend. I took a picture of both for two reasons. One, I wanted to show that I had one recipe that turned out quite successfully, and one that really turned out kinda terrible. Two, I was just too lazy to store these separately, so they went under the cake dome together and I just snapped a pic of both! It was fine, though. Anyway, the coffee cake was a recipe from my new Cooking Light Magazine.

It was for Sour Cream Coffee Cake, recipe found here, and I decided to take some liberties with it, so I didn't know what to expect when it came out of the oven. It was already made over by the magazine to be lower in fat and calories, but I lowered it even more. Where it said to use light sour cream, I used fat free. I used Smart Balance Butter Blend in place of real butter, and I omitted the nuts. Even with all those changes, this cake turned out incredibly moist, tender, and delicious. I was very happy with the results.

Those muffins, on the other hand, did not go over so well. I'd mentioned before that I've been making more baked goods because Evan loves them so much. I made these muffins specifically with him in mind. They were filled with oats, raisins, and were very low in sugar. Looking back, the small amount of sugar should probably have been a red flag, but I didn't think it seemed too odd. Turns out it was. They turned out a little weird. They look normal enough, I guess. They taste, um, okay-ish. But there is something sort of off about them. I guess if I had to sum it up, I'd say they were almost salty. Not necessarily a good thing for a muffin. I'm glad I tried out the recipe, though. Now I know what not to do!

Just as a final comment, I posted these pictures of my kids to show the stunning contrast between the one that hams it up for the camera now, and the one who has suddenly decided he hates having pictures taken of himself! Hope you enjoyed!

That's Some Drunk Pasta!

There seems to be no greater happiness to me right now than to make something nutritious and tasty, and have one (or both!) of my kids gobble it up and love it. So I have been on something of a baking kick. I made muffins over the weekend, and much to my delight, Evan couldn't get enough of them! I'll have to make them again and post about them. Today, I decided to finally put the last of a box of clementines we've had to good use, and make more muffins.



Evan adored the muffins. Xander wouldn't even try them. They were Clementine Poppy Seed Muffins, which I thought was an intriguing and clever use of the clementine. They weren't something I would make every day, or crave in the middle of the night, but they were nice, solid muffins with a crunchy-ish top and a tender inside.



But enough about muffins. For our Valentine's Day dinner, Andy and I decided to try out a recipe for Drunken Tuscan Pasta, by Rachael Ray. Now, my feelings about Rachael are quite mixed. I have loved her, and I have hated her. At this point, I think the conflict I feel is due to the fact that while she annoys me, I can't help but like a good amount of her recipes. What can I say? She's the TV cook that first inspired me to drag my lazy butt into the kitchen and start making myself useful. I guess I kind of owe her.

This pasta dish was incredibly easy to make, pretty healthy (if you overlook the fact that the pasta was actually boiled in a combination of red wine and water), and delicious. That made it a winner for us! Don't worry, we didn't feed the kids this drunken pasta. I felt too weird giving them something cooked in that much wine. But Andy and I really enjoyed it, and we would definitely make it again. Here's the recipe.



Drunken Tuscan Pasta
Adapted from Rachael Ray
4 servings

Ingredients
1 (750 ml) bottle of red wine (such as Chianti)
coarse salt
1 lb. bucatini pasta
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 lb. deli-sliced pancetta
3 portabella mushroom caps, thinly sliced
3 sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
red pepper flakes (a couple pinches)
4-5 cups chopped kale (you could use swiss chard, spinach, or escarole)
black pepper
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions
1. Pour the whole bottle of wine into a large pasta pot; fill the rest of the way with water, set it on the stove to boil, add salt when boiling, and then add pasta. Cook pasta to al dente; reserve at least a cup of pasta water before draining.
2. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add olive oil, then chopped pancetta. Brown pieces until crispy and golden brown, then reserve on a paper towel-lined plate.
3. Add mushrooms to the same skillet. Season with the rosemary and then cook for 6-8 minutes, until deeply golden. Push mushrooms to the side, and add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for another minute, then toss mushrooms with garlic mixture.
4. Add chopped greens to the pan, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and wilt them down. Once the greens have wilted, add the reserved pasta liquid, 1/3 cup at a time, and cook to reduce a little.
5. Add well-drained pasta to the skillet. Add pancetta back to the pan, along with a handful of the parmigiano-reggiano cheese, and toss the pasta for a minute to allow it to absorb liquid. Add more liquid if necessary. Serve with more cheese on the side.