Mini Cinnamon Muffins

I bought these really adorable mini muffin pans a couple weeks ago at Home Goods, and I figured a holiday is a great day to bake. It can be hard for me to find the time and the energy to bake. And I don't think it's that baking is terribly time consuming, unless you're making a bread. I think it must just be a combination of clean-up and the fact that I don't really eat baked goods. Anyway, so these muffin pans were cute, and I was going to make mini apple muffins, but seeing as how I didn't want to peel and core apples, I found this recipe instead (through FoodGawker, of course).

I substituted whole wheat flour (because I didn't want to open our white flour and hey, this is healthier, anyway, right?) and almond milk (because we don't keep regular cow's milk anymore). I thought the muffins were pretty good, maybe a little too dry (because of the whole wheat flour or the almond milk or perhaps overmixing?), and I would probably add a little more cinnamon and maybe a little nutmeg too next time. Also, they came out perfect looking. I was quite pleased with the lovely round muffin tops.

Mini Cinnamon Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup almond milk
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease mini muffin pans or line with mini cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
Melt butter in the microwave, about 30-40 seconds.
In another bowl, beat together the butter, eggs, milk, brown sugar, and vanilla.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated.
Drop the batter into the pans, about a tablespoon for each muffin.
Mix together sugar and cinnamon for the topping and sprinkle mixture over the top of each muffin.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, until muffin tops bounce back or a toothpick comes out clean.
Enjoy!

ICBC Pumpkin

This is the first time probably since this Iron Chef Blogger Challenge started that I've actually cooked an ingredient during the week it was selected. Blanca, our newest Iron Chef, chose pumpkin as the secret ingredient, perfect for the season! For my secret ingredient recipe, I found this recipe on one of my favorite food blog sites, Annie's Eats. Annie makes a lot of amazing looking baked goods, and also has a lot of really accessible recipes for the type of cooking I like to do, simple, homemade stuff. Here's a link to her recipe, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.

I ended up making two dozen muffins, and still had batter left over. The muffins are pretty delicious, and I love the surprise of finding the cream cheese in the center. There's a little too much clove in it, so I would probably recommend taking the clove down to a 1/2 teaspoon or 3/4 teaspoon. But the cream cheese balances the spice in the muffin nicely. And overall, I would say the effort behind the recipe isn't too bad. For a little bit of bragging, I made these muffins in the morning before I went to work.

Here's a link to La Monica's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge, Pumpkin.

Blueberry Muffins

Tonight, I decided to go for a baking frenzy, but only succeeded in making blueberry muffins because I ran out of flour. So much for the baking frenzy. But now I at least have breakfast for the rest of the week. This recipe comes to you by way of Pioneer Woman, one of my favorite daily blog reads. I made a couple adjustments to the recipe due to what I had on hand, but I was pleased enough with the result. The color of the muffins was a little too dark for my tastes, and I tried to adjust the cooking time by five minutes when I put in the second batch, but then it didn't seem long enough. Looks aside, the muffins are pretty tasty and will make a perfect quick breakfast.

Ingredients:
3 cups minus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Dash of nutmeg
Heavy pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup veggie oil (I used canola)
1 egg
1 generous cup plain yogurt (I used light vanilla)
2 cups blueberries
vanilla extract
softened butter (for muffin tins)
Turbinado sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.

In a large bowl, sift flour, baking soda, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, cap-ful of vanilla extract, egg, and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients and stir to a count of 10.

Add blueberries to mixture and stir 3 times.

Add mixture to well-buttered muffin tins. (I skipped the buttered tins and just put down cupcake wrappers). Sprinkle berries on top and press down. (I also skipped this step). Sprinkle turbinado sugar over top. Brown sugar can be substituted. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.