Muffin Round-Up

Looking back at all the drafts I've written to be published, it occurs to me that I have far too many muffins.

Well, that's a lie. Far too many muffins that I haven't shared. Even after the insane amount of baking I did for Christmas, I don't think there's such a thing as too many muffins.

Instead of writing full entries for each of them, I'm just gonna share a few quick pictures and my thoughts on them. Maybe that'll motivate me to finally get the rest of my old entries up so I can start sharing new stuff again. Like the buffalo chicken calzones I made recently. Oh god, why did I wait so long to make those?

First up: Coconut Jam Muffins, from Los Angeles Times. They're definitely dessert muffins, since they're pretty darn sweet. Surprisingly, even my friends who didn't like coconut liked these. I think it's probably because they have oatmeal too, because oatmeal does magic things to muffins.


Whole Grain Pumpkin muffins from Other Side of Fifty, which I sadly didn't take a picture of. They didn't look too pretty. I also doubled the batch to use all the pumpkin I had left, and ate these for almost a month and a half. As someone who's always disliked pumpkin pie, I thought that was a pretty big feat.

Morning Glory Muffins from Joy of Baking. I didn't get a picture of these either, but with a much more reasonable excuse. I made these the morning of Run For Your Lives, which is a zombie-themed 5k. We got up super early to drive to the race, and I decided that really nutricious muffins would be great, and someone suggested carrot. So I went all out and made Morning Glory muffins. There are no pictures of these because they were all completely demolished the night I made them, including the extra ones I left at my house. I'd highly recommend trying them.

Raspberry Lemon muffins from Coco Bean. Despite my making these more than six months ago, I remember them extremely well. I really liked the flavor, but I didn't do a great job with the zest, so there were long strands of lemon throughout the muffins that weren't really enjoyable to chew on. If it hadn't been for that, I think they would have been perfect.


Honey Cornbread muffins from A Farmgirl's Dabbles. I made these to pair with jambalaya, so I could watch the Princess and the Frog and have fitting food (never mind that they actually eat jumbo in that movie.), and they were great. Not overly sweet, but sweet enough that I think with a little jam they'd be a perfect dessert. Thinking about them makes me sad I gave the rest away...

Chocolate Cherry muffins from Stolen Moments. I don't think I even need to say much about these. Just look at the name and ingredient list. Chocolate muffins are great, and then add cherries? They were amazing.

Apple Cinnamon muffins from Southern, eh? I have a thing for apple and cinnamon. I love them. Next time I make these I'm going to put a bit more cinnamon in them, but otherwise they were great. They're also surprisingly low calorie.

And now for the Christmas muffins.

White and Purple Amaretto muffins, modified from I Love Muffins. Instead of having any chocolate I just made extra batter and died some of it purple. I wasn't a big fan of these, but I think the texture difference the chocolate would have provided would probably have alleviated most of my complains about them. I also just didn't find them terribly flavorful, since I didn't add anything to compensate.


Strawberry Cinnamon Sugar muffins from Eggs on Sunday. I added some food coloring to make the batter pink, and also put pink sugar sparkles on top, just in case it wasn't sweet enough before. They were quite good, although I wish strawberry flavoring would come through more in baking. Maybe if a large number of strawberries were pureed....


I would actually call these cupcakes, honestly.... and we didn't take a picture of any of them, but they're rainbow muffins! I had a lot of help with these, and they did a bunch better job at making them even than I probably would have.... making the rainbow cake was frustrating enough for me.


Here's a picture of all the muffins (well... half of the muffins. There were five tins in the end):


There are four muffins in there I didn't take pictures of individually: blueberry from Obsessed with Baking (which I've made before and are always a huge hit), another version of Cinnamon Sugar muffins, banana muffins from Melbourne Food Files, and my personal favorite, apple butterscotch from Annie's Eats. I could have easily eaten all of the butterscotch ones on my own, and probably would have if there hadn't been people in the kitchen with me.

Okay, there's one more muffin I didn't share with you guys, because they were special. I also liked the pictures I took of them enough that I think they deserve their own post. So while the world may be almost caught up on my muffin adventures, bear in mind that I just ate the last of the banana muffins, so the time for more is rapidly approaching....

"These are the best muffins you've ever made."

I made these muffins a while ago, using apricot jam that I had leftover from making thumbprint cookies. I had a whole second jar of jam, so I brought it to my friend's house to use up more and to leave it with them.

I made the muffins while they were working on dinner, which was a delicious fish of swordfish steaks, crab cakes, and green beans with garlic and onion. The meal was fantastic, but I won't go into details about it because I did nothing to help prepare it, and it seems unfair to take their credit.

Around 4:30, I decided I was too hungry to wait for dinner. So was Kendo Bird. So I decided to make the muffins I had promised Darth Bird, while they worked on making the crab cakes and the swordfish.

They came out of the oven around 4:40.



Except for the second one that I spent a while resisting, they were all gone by 4:46.



Everyone ate two muffins, while they were still steaming from the oven. I had almost burned my hands getting them out as quickly as I could. And they were instantly destroyed.

They're also delicious in the mornings, microwaved to the point where the jam is once again hot and bubbly. They're light and, dare I say it, fluffy, with a slight hint of cinnamon in the dough. We've used six different jams now: apricot, black cherry, red plum, peaches, raspberry, and blackberry. I've only eaten the apricot and red plum. We played muffin roulette. Made two dozen muffin, with four of each, put them all on a giant plate, and spun it around. I got red plum, but my diet stopped me from taking two or three more, like I really wanted to.

These are certainly a new favorite. I can see making these for parties, although I'd love to find a way to make them look prettier...



I dunno, they look pretty good on their own.

Cinnamon Jam Roulette Muffins
(Makes 12 muffins, with 126 calories and $0.21 per muffins)

1.5 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2.5 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup butter

3 tablespoons milk

1 large egg

1/4 cup jam

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375.
   
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and salt. Mix well.
   
3. Combine yogurt, butter, milk, and egg in separate bowl.
   
4. Add wet ingredients to dry, just combining.
   
5. Spoon one tablespoon batter into each liner.
   
6. Top each with 1 teaspoon jam, and then top with remaining batter.
   
7. Combine extra tablespoon sugar with extra cinnamon, and sprinkle over batter.
   
8. Bake for 15 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• My friends really, really like muffins.
  
• Six varieties of jam, and no one can decide which was best....
  

Too Many Cherries

Here's a little secret about Ms. Brown Bird: I think those chocolate-covered cherry candies are disgusting. There. I've said it. I do like cherries, though. So when I found a bag of frozen cherries that time had forgot in our freezer, I decided they'd be delicious in my next batch of muffins.

The cherries are lucky I didn't just throw them in a cobbler, frankly. It was so tempting.

These muffins... were not what I expected. Maybe that's because I messed up. Well. Almost definitely because I messed up, honestly. Let's be fair. Where did I go wrong? I'll let you head over to Tastorama first, so you can see what I thought I was going to be making.

Aren't they pretty?



At this point, I realized I shouldn't have chopped the cherries. But it was too late to fix that, so I just kept going until I had put the whole bag in. Mama Bird and I had an interesting conversation right about this point.

Mama: "Wow, that's... pink. How many cherries did you put in?"
Me: "Two cups..."
Mama: "Really? That bag was only two cups of cherries?"
Me: "Well, it was 16 ounces."
Mama: "...And?"
Me: "Well, 8 ounces is a cup, so 16 ounces should have been two cups. So I didn't measure, I just put them all in."

I was feeling very smug right then. I could do basic math, I knew a lot of conversions, and I had saved myself from having to wash a measuring cup. A complete victory, right?

Mama Bird then pointed out a few important things to me. 1) Two cups of chopped cherries and two cups of whole cherries are very different amounts. 2) Most objects aren't exactly 8 ounces to a cup, that's just a generally accepted conversion.

So. I had a lot of extra cherry flavor in these.



And my cutting board vaguely reminded me of a scene from Dexter.



They looked... sickly when they came out of the oven. There's really no other word for it. I was quite upset about it, because I am far too cheap to throw away muffins.

Oh. Did I mention I burned them slightly? Not really burned, but they were browned on the bottom, and I would always rather under-bake something. I've been on a streak of over-baking, it would seem...



But, honestly, they aren't actually bad. The flavor is very cherry-ful. Mama Bird is a fan of them, so not all is lost. They also freeze wonderfully, so my dream of eating muffins for breakfast every day continues. Next up will be a banana-strawberry muffin, but before I post them I'll have to share what else I made last week, and my mother's day gift to Mama Bird!

Recipe from Tastorama
(Makes 24 muffins, with 136 calories and $0.19 per muffin.)

3 cups minus 2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoons salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup yogurt

2 cups cherries

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 385.
   
2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in one bowl.
   
3. In separate bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla, egg, and yogurt.
   
4. Add the wet ingredients to dry, then fold in cherries.
   
5. Scoop batter into muffin pan.
   
6. Bake for 25 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• 8 ounces is not always a cup.
  
• Not all fruit in muffins is diced.
  
• Measuring chopped fruit and whole fruit is very important.