Posts Tagged ‘muffins’

We had pumpkin pie for dessert on Thanksgiving and there was some of the canned pumpkin leftover. I found a new recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website for Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins and DH made them for our breakfast on Sunday. We cut back on the butter and the topping a bit and they were still quite tasty. Here's the recipe with our modifications:

Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (recipe follows)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup milk

Topping Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl cream the butter and sugar and then add the egg. Mix in the pumpkin and vanilla. Add the flour and milk alternately to this mixture. Fill twelve greased and floured muffin tins 2/3 full (avoid using the paper liners for this recipe). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 mins. or until golden brown.
While the muffins are baking combine the 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Melt the butter. When you remove the muffins from the oven let them cool only slightly and then dip the tops in the melted butter and then dip them into the sugar and spice mixture. Serve warm and enjoy thoroughly.

To make your own Pumpkin Pie Spice for this recipe combine the following:
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg (heaping)
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger (heaping)
Mix thoroughly. This should make enough for this recipe.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Most quick bread recipes that utilize zucchini are for sweet breads. This one is a savory muffin that is good as an accompaniment to soups, stews, etc. The recipe comes from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. It has been one of our favorites for many years.

Zucchini Muffins
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
2 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 tsps. salt
2 cups shredded zucchini (could use frozen if well-drained)
1 1/2 tsps. Italian seasoning
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

In a small bowl break and slightly beat the eggs. Add the milk and oil.

In a mixing bowl measure the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir thoroughly. Add the zucchini and the Italian seasoning to the flour mixture and stir gently, then stir in the liquid ingredients. Stir only enough to combine the ingredients. Spoon the batter into muffins tins that have been greased and floured. Fill each cup about half full and then sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of each muffin. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 mins. or until golden brown. This will make 18-24 muffins. These freeze well.

Here are the ingredients ready to be combined:

Here are the muffins ready to pop into the oven:

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

The Lord has blessed us this summer with a variety of berries from our garden. If you read my husband Rob's blog you may have seen some of his posts about our yard and garden. Our lot is shaped like a piece of pie and the top rounded part at the back of the lot is a stone ditch. Rob planted monkey grass, day lillies, and daffodils on the far side of the ditch and he has planted blackberries, red raspberries, and blueberries on the side of the ditch closest to our house. There's a picture of some of the bushes in this blog post. (Scroll to the bottom)

This is the first year we have gotten a good amount of red raspberries and blueberries. The blackberries are just starting to come on and it looks like it will be a good year for them as well.

I've tried a couple of new recipes with the red raspberries and recently Rob made one of our favorite muffins with the first of the blueberries. This recipe is a combination of a recipe I got years ago from a student and a streusel topping recipe that DD Megan got when she took Cooking in high school. The muffins contain buttermilk which gives them a slight tang and helps keep them nice and tender. If you have access to some fresh berries you will have to give it a try.

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cup blueberries

Streusel Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 Tbsps. margarine or butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins. Combine streusel ingredients to make a crumbly topping.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Combine the eggs, buttermilk, and oil in a small bowl. Fold the blueberries gently into the dry ingredients. (This helps to prevent green or aqua blueberry muffins!) Add the liquid ingredients and stir gently just enough to combine. Carefully spoon into the prepared muffin tins. Top each muffin with a portion of the streusel topping. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the muffins test done. Makes about 18 muffins. Here's a picture of the finished muffins:

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Oatmeal Muffins is another one of our favorites. I originally got this recipe from my sister-in-law, Deb, who has given me many very good recipes over the years. These muffins don't have any fancy ingredients but when all are combined together they produce a delicious muffin. I really like to use buttermilk in a variety of baked goods. It helps to tenderize cakes and muffins and gives them a nice flavor. I have tried substituting the powdered buttermilk in the past but in my humble opinion it's just not as good. I try to keep a carton of buttermilk in the refrigerator at all times and use it for biscuits, muffins, pancakes, waffles, etc. I find it will keep for at least a month.

Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup oatmeal (dry)
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

In a small bowl combine the oats and buttermilk and let stand for a few minutes. After this add the egg and oil.

In another bowl whisk together the brown sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Briefly combine the wet and the dry ingredients. Scoop into 12 muffin cups. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 mins.

I hope you will give these a try sometime. They are good for breakfast or as a bread with soup or something similar.

We are enjoying our guests from Germany. They are learning new English words and phrases and we are learning German as well. One night we had fun teaching them how to play Chicken Foot Dominoes. We tried to think of a game that was pretty easy to explain and where you didn't need a great deal of English vocabulary. They caught on quickly and we had a fun evening.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Believe it or not, this is what we saw outside our window early Sunday morning. It was pretty well gone by the time church was over and then this afternoon turned out to be beautiful and sunny. It was quite a day of contrasting weather.

You probably do not know that every Sunday morning my DH, IV man, bakes something for our breakfast. Rob was a baker all four years while he was in college, so he has plenty of baking experience.

One of my favorite things that he bakes are these apricot muffins. I found the recipe at a site for recipes from Bed and Breakfasts several years ago. You can find the recipe here

Don't leave the orange rind out - it really adds great flavor to the muffins. We like to grate the rind off of each orange we eat and keep it in the freezer for the next batch of muffins.

Rob does not generally soak the apricots in the boiling water if they are soft to begin with. If the apricots you are using are sort of dried out, you might want to soak them, but otherwise it's not really necessary. He just snips them into pieces with scissors.

He also usually makes 18 muffins from this amount of batter rather than just twelve like the recipe states. Here he is using Pan spread to grease the muffin tin.

I hope that you will give them a try when you want something really good for breakfast. Here's a picture of the finished muffins.

How about you - do any of the men in your family do any cooking or baking?
Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail