Coffee Break Muffins (TWD)

As a self-confessed coffee junkie, this week's Tuesday With Dorie recipe for Coffee Break Muffins is right up my alley. Rhiani of Chocoholic Anonymous is our hostess this week, and you can find the complete recipe on her blog.

I've been needing this additional boost of caffeine. Insomnia + catching up on DVR backlog = not a lot of sleep.

Dorie goes bold with the coffee in this recipe. Strong brewed coffee plus a healthy amount of instant espresso gives these muffins its pep.

I thought these muffins needed a little something else, so I topped half of the muffins with a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips.

These muffins were super yummy! I actually enjoyed the plain muffins over the chocolate chip topped version. The coffee flavor is not shy, but it doesn't overwhelm. I particularly loved the texture of these muffins - a nice tight crumb, but not overly dense.

These babies will definitely make a repeat appearance at my breakfast table.

Zucchini, Carrot, and Cranberry Muffins

I purchased The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook eons ago, and it has sadly been collecting dust on my bookshelf until now. John Barricelli is one heckuva pastry chef, and I totally admire his accomplishments. With Martha Stewart complementing and backing his talents, you know that he is a pastry rock star.

Yes, I fantasize about opening a bakery like his...

There are so many delicious sounding recipes and drool-worthy photos in the book. Which recipe should I try first? It only took a few page flips to decide.

I love zucchini bread. I love carrot cake. This recipe for Zucchini, Carrot, and Cranberry Muffins combines the best of both worlds.

The recipe calls for a equal portion of shredded zucchini and carrots.
A generous help of cranberries (frozen Trader Joe's cranberries here) are folded in batter. I used Trader Joe's frozen cranberries in this instance, but I think any tart berry or fruit would be a perfect substitution. I might try this with frozen raspberries next time.

The muffins smelled heavenly as they baked in the oven. After a quick rest on the cooling rack, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into one of these babies.

Yum! The orange and green flecks from the shredded veggies are so pretty, and they gave the muffin a nice, moist texture. The cranberries were really yummy, and I enjoyed the tartness from the fruit.

Wow, I regret that I waited so long to bake from this book.

Better late than never. I can't wait to try more recipes going forward...


Zucchini, Carrot, and Cranberry Muffins
barely adapted from The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook by John Barricelli
makes 12 muffins

2 C AP flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground nutmeg
1 C sugar
1 C canola oil
2 large eggs, room temp
3/4 C finely grated carrots (approx 1 medium)
3/4 C finely grated zucchini (approx 1 medium)
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 C whole fresh or frozen (unthawed) cranberries

Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Grease a standard 12 cup muffin pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla until combined. Mix in the grated zucchini and carrots.

Fold in the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until combined. Fold in the cranberries.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Rotate the pan mid way through the baking time.

Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Turn out muffins on their side in the muffin cups, and let cool in the pan. Serve warm or at room temp.

Fresh Fig Muffins

When my husband and I purchased our home way back when, we were particularly thrilled that our backyard had a variety of fruit trees growing: orange, grapefruit, lemon, peach and fig.

During the summers, we would gorge ourselves silly with the bounty of peaches and figs that we harvested from our postage stamp sized backyard. I didn't do a lot of cooking and baking back then, so most of the fruit was eaten fresh, and what we didn't eat were shared with family and friends.

Fast forward 10 years, and it was time for us to embark on a massive home remodel. For various reasons, we had to relinquish the fruit trees had to go to make our outdoor living space practical and accessible. It was truly a sad day when our backyard was demo'ed, and we bid adieu to our fruit trees.

I miss those fruit trees, especially the fig tree. I've grown to love the lush, juicy texture, the slight crunch from the seeds, and the earthy sweetness of the ripe fruit. When figs are in season at the farmers market (which is right now), I will pounce on baskets of this delicious fruit.

I've always enjoyed eating figs very simply - fresh figs, chevre and honey is my favorite. Recently, I've started to explore cooking and baking with the fruit.

I've recently discovered that dried figs are a fantastic substitution for raisins and other dried fruits in recipes. Now, before the season is over, I want to explore recipes using fresh figs.
I thought that this recipe for fresh fig muffins would be a great start for me. These muffins are not fussy, and I like that.

These muffins are soft and fluffy, and the figs basically melt into the muffin. The dark brown sugar and cinnamon provide a subtle spiciness to the cake, but still allow the flavor of the figs to shine.

With the success of this recipe, I'll definitely be doing some more cooking and baking with figs with the few weeks left this summer. I found this list of "what to do with figs recipes" while surfing on the web, and I'm definitely going to take some of the suggested recipes for a test drive. If you have a tried and true recipe using fresh figs, I would love to hear about it!
---------------------------------------

Fresh Fig Muffins
adapted from The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco
makes 12 muffins

1 C AP flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 C buttermilk
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C dark brown sugar
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 C chopped fresh mission figs (5-6 figs)

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Generously butter a standard 12 cup muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

In a second small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla.

Using an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar until well combined.

With the mixer at low speed, alternate adding the the dry and liquid ingredients - 1/3 flour mixture, 1/2 buttermilk mixture, 1/3 flour mixture, 1/2 buttermilk mixture, 1/3 flour mixture. Mix until just combined. Do not overmix.

Remove bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the figs.

Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them 3/4 full.

Bake until the muffins are a deep golden brown in color, 25-30 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Then turn out muffins from the pan and let them cool completely on the wire rack.

Allspice Crumb Muffins (TWD)

I treasure the early morning hours, especially on the weekends. Most people I know do whatever they can to squeeze in a extra hour or two of zzzzz's. I happily buck that trend, looking forward to the quiet pre-dawn hours on Saturday and Sunday. Once I get a humongous pot of coffee going, I dive into the pile magazines and books that accumulate on my my nightstand and leisurely read the morning paper (which is a rare treat for me).

Dorie Greenspan's Allspice Crumb Muffin was a delicious bonus to my early morning ritual. The prep work for this recipe was mercifully easy (I didn't even need to bring out a knife!), and for that minimal effort, I was rewarded with this yummy breakfast treat. To top it off, the house was filled that wonderful smell of something delicious baking in the oven.

This was the first time that I've made a recipe that calls for allspice to be front and center. I think I've been missing out, I loved the complex cinnamon-clove flavor of this spice. The muffin itself is very moist, and the streusel topping provides nice slightly crunchy texture contrast. The addition of lemon zest is an optional ingredient in the recipe, but I thought it provided essential flavor to complement the spice.

I used large muffin liners for this recipe, and the recipe yielded 8 jumbo muffins.

Thanks Kayte of Grandma's KitchenTable for this week's TWD selection. Please visit Kayte's blog for this recipe, or better yet go get yourself a copy of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours.

Pear Muffin Cake

Am I the only one that absolutely hates going out on New Years Eve? Maybe I’m becoming an old fuddy-duddy, but nothing beats curling up with my hubby on the couch in my flannel pjs, watching the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel, and muching a huge bowl of popcorn and drinking champagne.

This morning, I woke up without an alarm clock and hang-over free (ahhh, now that’s a great feeling). My hubby and I hung out on our pjs all morning, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the backyard (it was a gorgeous day in SoCal) and watched back-to-back bowl games. This is what I call the perfect way to start the new year!

This pear muffin cake is perfect for this kind of lazy day, as it’s very quick and easy to make and it’s delicious!

Pear Muffin Cake
Adapted from Baking: My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan

½ C whole milk
½ C apple cider (or another ½ C milk)
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 ¾ C AP flour
½ C sugar
¼ C brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cardamom
¼ tsp salt
¾ C old-fashioned oats
2 pears, peeled & cut into medium chunks
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

Butter and flour an 8 inch square pan.

Whisk together the liquid ingredients (milk, cider, egg, vanilla, melted butter) in medium bowl.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt to combine thoroughly. Add the oats and mix to combine.

Using a large rubber spatula, pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix only until combined (less is better). Fold in the diced pears, and pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted into the cake center comes out clean.

Let cake cool until warm or room temperature. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, cut into squares, and enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins (TWD)

I'm going to keep this post sweet and simple...As you are reading this, my DH and I are well into our vacation.... first we're getting back to nature by spending time in Yosemite and then indulging in a lot of great food and wine in San Francisco and wine country (and the bonus of driving down the gorgeous California coast).

In the meantime, I won't be able to visit and comment on everyone's blogs, so it looks like I'll have alot of catch up to do when I get back home! :)

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Pumpkin Muffins, was selected by Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp.
This is a pretty easy and straightforward recipe (as muffins should be). I didn't have any sunflower seeds to top the muffins, so instead topped the muffins with a streusel mix ( made with brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, pecans). I enjoyed the pumpkin flavor and the light fluffy texture of the muffins. My only complaint ---I didn't think that the raisins did much for this recipe. The next time I make this, out with the raisins and in with chocolate chunks/chips.
I thought this muffin was tasty, satisfying and not overly sweet... a perfect accompaniment to a morning cup of coffee. I'll definitely repeat this recipe as it's super easy to assemble and bake.
If you're interested in making this at home, check out Kelly's site. To see the amazing handiwork of the other TWD bakers, check out the blogroll.

Berry Orange Muffins (TWD rewind)

Since I had muffins on the brain while making this week's Tuesdays With Dorie pick of pumpkin muffins, I also went ahead and made a rewind recipe, Berry Orange Muffins, which I've been meaning to try since joining the group.
What makes this muffin special is the delicious flavor combination of blueberries and orange. I followed the recipe as written, and used Trader Joe's frozen wild blueberries (LOVE these, as the berries are smaller and more flavorful than the other frozen options IMHO). I also topped the muffins with decorating sugar crystals, and thought the crunch of the sugar was a nice contrast to the tender muffin.
This muffin is super flavorful, moist and delicious, and this is going to definitely get put into my morning baking rotation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Berry Orange Muffins

from Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

grated zest and juice of 1 orange

about 3/4 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons honey

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup blueberries - fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)
Decorating sugar, for topping (optional)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey and melted butter.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough - the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.