Strawberry Cornmeal Muffins

I've been craving lots of strawberry baked goods lately. I ended up using this recipe from Eating Out Loud because it seemed simple. The fifth grade teacher I helped this past year said that they were good, and my mom and I liked 'em too. They're not too sweet, by the way.


Strawberry cornmeal muffin recipe (rewritten from here):

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped strawberries + 1/2 cup for garnish

1)In a large mixing bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, & salt
2) Add beaten egg, oil & milk, stirring until just combined
3) Fold in 1 cup chopped strawberries
4)Fill muffin cups 3/4 full & then garnish with a few chopped berries
5) Bake at 400F (200C) for 20-25 min. or until done
6) Allow muffins to cool before removing from the muffin tin

Makes...16-ish muffins? Judging by the picture. Forgot to count.

Easy, huh?

Even Better To-Die-For Blueberry Muffins (New Favorite)

Baked 6/14/09

My new favorite blueberry muffin recipe! I've used this before, but I tried again, and now they taste better. Jenny T. and her family liked them! :)

*Recipe below (scroll down)*
- After the first try, I made these changes (still based on the original recipe):
(1) I made mini muffins + a small bowl of...muffin stuff? haha
(2) I added extra blueberries
(3) I made the whole topping recipe (the first time I only guessed how much I would need)
--> I don't recommend this. I had way too much topping left over (see picture below).
(4) I used vegetable oil (not applesauce this time)

HERE's the post I made when I first tried this recipe. The paper cups don't work too well, and I prefer these mini versions.



The topping (made too much!! This was all extra!):

To-Die-For Blueberry Muffin recipe:

RECIPE (original recipe here).

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar (a little less)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk (i used non-fat)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (i used a little extra)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease cups or line w. muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. For Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Bread Pudding Muffins

Baked on 3/8/09 for the third Psi Chi study group (they're not cookies, but we had Oreos there too).

These are really easy to make (recipe below). The most complicated part is cutting the bread slices into cubes. Haha.





Soak time!:



I know...switching between flash & no-flash makes the coloring inconsistent, but the flash version of this pic didn't reveal the texture very well:


I hadn't baked in ages!

Original recipe here.
Here's the recipe I used:
* Changes I made:
1) 2% milk instead of non-fat -- yeah...I usually only use non-fat, but I had extra from the first
Psi Chi Cookies 'n' Cram study group thing, which was a failure)
2) Chocolate chips instead of raisins

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
  
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 12 slices whole wheat bread (diced into 1/2-inch cubes)
• 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard)
  
  Directions:
  
  1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  2) Spray a standard-size muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray
  3) Combine all ingredients but the bread and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix well
  4) Stir in the bread and chocolate chips and let soak for 5 minutes
  5) Mound the mixture into each of the 12 sprayed muffin tins
  6) Bake for about 30-ish minutes or until firm and nicely browned
  7) Cool on a wire rack
  

Blueberry Muffins

Baked 1.2009

Found this recipe when searching for a good blueberry muffin receipe. Glad I did!

Makes nice muffin tops...not too sweet...lots of blueberries.


Blueberry Muffin RECIPE (original here):

* Note: Flour and sugar are listed twice because you use different amounts of the same ingredients at different times

* 2 eggs
* 1 cup milk
* 1/4 cup melted butter
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 3 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup white sugar

1) In small bowl, beat eggs, milk, & butter
2) In large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, & 2 tablespoons of sugar
3) Stir liquid ingredients into dry ingredients
4) In third bowl, mix together the blueberries with remaining sugar & flour
5) Gently fold blueberry mixture into the muffin batter in large bowl
6) Fill cups & bake at 400 degrees F for ~20 min

Lawsuit Buttermilk Muffins

Baked 1.16.09

I had some extra buttermilk after making apple muffins...so I decided to try this Lawsuit Buttermilk Muffins recipe (because Ivonne said they were "the best muffins ever") from Cream Puffs in Venice, who is now at this site. The original recipe actually comes from Marcy Goldman, author of The best of BetterBaking.com, which is, of course, based off of BetterBaking.com recipes. These are really good, but I didn't follow the recipe exactly. The orange zest gives it a nice tart, orange-y flavor. Maybe next time I'll add more almonds (I was just experimenting with those on the tops). They don't stick to paper liners!



RECIPE:

* Changes I made from the original recipe):
1. I didn't make the streusel topping, although I did sprinkle the tops with chopped almonds and brown sugar
2. I used a bit less than 1 cup of brown sugar (instead of 1 1/3 cup packed brown sugar)
3. I only used about 1 tablespoon of orange zest (instead of 1 1/2 tablespoons)
4. I used 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour & 1 cup of whole wheat flour (instead of all all-purpose flour)
5. I added 1 cup of blueberries and an apple for the fruit (instead of measuring out 1 3/4 cups fruit)

Muffin recipe that I used (without streusel):

* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* ~ 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 tablespoons grated citrus zest (I used orange)
* 1 egg
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 3/4 cups of fruit (I used 1 cup of blueberries & almost a full small apple)

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F & line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with oil & flour (or spraying oil made with flour!! it's awesome)
2) In large bowl, mix together dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder, & baking soda); set aside
3) In smaller bowl, mix together oil, brown sugar, citrus zest, & egg. Once combined, stir in buttermilk & vanilla extract
4) Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well.
5) Gently mix in fruit. If batter too liquidy (mine wasn't), then add a little more flour
6) Spoon batter into muffin cups to the tops
7) Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees
8) Lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 12 minutes.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

* I originally posted this 1.13.2008, but I've made these two (?) times since then.

* bad flash/lighting...I know...

I found the original recipe at BakingBites.com, one of my favorite food blogs.

Here is my recipe (the only changes were that I used semi-sweet choc. chips and I cut down on the brown sugar):

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup brown sugar (a little less)
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled (actually, I used part of a margarine bar)
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs
1 cup non-fat milk
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, peanut butter, eggs and milk until smooth. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Divide batter into muffin tin, filling each cup to the top.
5. Bake for 17-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.
6. Cool on a wire rack (or just on a plate or tray).

Makes 12. * It really did make 12 full muffins; the picture is misleading because I ate the 12th one.

THE RESULTS:
* I love these because the muffin base itself isn't too sweet and the tops are PERFECT for muffin-top lovers (they're nice and big!). They were easy to make too! I would definitely make them again. I like the little bits of peanuts too. AND they smelled wonderful. I think the peanut butter flavor could be stronger, but since Nicole, the creator of BakingBites.com, says that peanut butter tends to make baked goods dry and dense, I'm not sure if adding more peanut butter would be a good idea. I think anyone else would like the peanut butter flavor though...I tend to not be able to taste pumpkin in pumpkin foods, so maybe there's something wrong with my taste buds. Also, I had trouble whisking the peanut butter in with the rest of the ingredients because the peanut butter kept getting stuck inside the whisk. Had to use my (clean) finger quite a bit. Overall, YUMMY. I plan on freezing these and saving them for when this semester starts stressing me out.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

* Baked 12.2007 *


My second batch of muffins of the day (see previous post for a description of those)! I think I've found my favorite vegan pumpkin muffin recipe!! I have another really easy one, but this one makes softer muffins.

As usual, I used an existing online recipe and made it healthier. Here's the original recipe from allrecipes.com

And here is the adjusted recipe that I used:

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce -- can use oil instead
1/2 cup silken tofu (beaten) -- can use 2 eggs instead
3/4 cup canned organic pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin pan or use paper liners.
2. Mix sugar, applesauce, & tofu. Add pumpkin & water.
3. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Add wet mixture & stir in chocolate chips
5. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.
**For all of my chocolate chip muffins, I add an additional few chips on the tops of each muffin so that they get baked directly and taste like HEAVEN when they're done. That's the best muffin tip I could give you right there.**
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

** THE RESULTS **

The GOOD:
+ Just enough chocolate chips.
+ Good texture - kinda fluffy!
+ Not too sweet

The BAD:
- I could have blended/beaten the tofu a bit more. Saw some white chunkies that might gross
other people out.
- This recipe only makes 11 muffins (the website said 12). What is up with me not ending up
with the right amount of muffins?
- They stick to the cupcake cups too much.

Next time:
* Don't use cupcake cups. Try greasing the tin instead.
__________________________________________________________________

Can't wait to try that one again. I'm excited about the tofu being unnoticeable (besides the tiny chunks that I saw, which I will definitely fix)! And the applesauce worked out well too. I feel so healthy. Except for the chocolate chips...but they just taste so good!

Almost-Vegan Cinnamon Muffins

Baked 12.2007

I used Recipezaar's recipe with several alterations (like using whole wheat flour instead of regular flour and excluding all spices except for cinnamon). Here is the recipe for the ones I made:

CINNAMON MUFFINS (makes 9 smallish muffins):
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup well-beaten silken tofu (as an egg replacer)
1/2 cup non-fat milk (this is the part that makes it un-vegan)
1/3 cup margarine (melted)

TOPPING:
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup margarine (melted)

* Preheat oven to 400 degrees*
1. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon
2. Mix egg, milk & margarine and stir them into the dry ingredients until moist
3. Spoon into cupcake cups about 2/3 full (baking cups or oiled cupcake tin)
4. Put in oven for 18 minutes or until ready
5. For topping, combine sugar & cinnamon
6. Brush tops of warm muffins in margarine and dip them into the sugar/cinnamon mixture
___________________________________________________________________________________

Very easy. By the way, I usually only use easy recipes. I have a very limited supply of cooking materials and ingredients...AND I'm lazy and afraid of complex instructions.

** THE RESULTS **

THE GOOD:
+ Overall, they tasted great
+ I personally couldn't tell that they were made of tofu instead of egg. Cooool (this was my first time using tofu
for muffins)
+ The muffin itself wasn't too sweet, and the cinnamon-sugar tops added just the right amount of sweetness

THE BAD:
- Probably would have tasted better with real butter, but then again...I felt less guilty using a lower fat brand of
margarine. It wasn't bad bad though!!
- The recipe only makes 9 small muffins when Recipezaar said it would make 12!

Next Time:
* Probably won't make these again...
_____________________________________________________________________________________

So that was exciting. Will use silken tofu more often in baking!

AllRecipes.com's To-Die-For Blueberry Muffins

Baked Thursday, 9.4.08

This was an experiment because I'd never used this recipe before and I wasn't sure how these would turn out with applesauce instead of oil.

I am aware that this picture is not the best, but I think the muffin itself looks good (look at those blueberries!). The only thing I didn't like about this recipe (er...my version of it) was that it stuck to the muffin liners too much. Made these and those peanut butter chocolate chip muffins for Mina's back-to-school party/get-together.


This recipe only made 10 regular-sized muffins. It's a jumbo muffin recipe though so it wasn't the recipe's fault. Oh well...you just have to fill the empty compartments with water.


These started getting really thick really fast in the oven! I was worried they'd overflow into each other:


RECIPE (original recipe here).

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar (a little less)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (i used applesauce 'cause i don't have veg oil)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk (i used non-fat)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar (i used a lot less than this)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (i used a lot less)
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed (i used a lot less)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (i used a lot less)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease cups or line w. muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. For Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

NOTES: I didn't want to make too much of the topping...so I just sorta guessed how much of each ingredient to put in and then globbed it on (I couldn't sprinkle it 'cause of its thickness), hoping it would be okay.

If you can get away with using applesauce instead of oil, why not? I'd make these again. I wouldn't make the topping for myself though...just extra unnecessary sugar and fat.

Surprisingly Good Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I made these for my auntie yesterday because she chopped off my hair yesterday. I say these were "surprisingly" good because I normally hate carrot cake, although maybe my tastes have changed. Got this recipe here (see my version below). It required a lot of time and effort, but I'd still consider it easy. Once you prep everything (shred the carrots, soak the raisins, drain the pineapple and carrots, chop the walnuts, etc.), it's pretty simple.

Dang stupid shadow. Need to work on my lack of photography skills. Here's what 3 cups of grated carrots looks like (wayy good arm workout!). For some reason I kept thinking about how much carrot this recipe requires, and then I remembered I was making carrot cake. Smart.

I forgot to add in the raisins so I added those last (I don't think that matters).

Raw:

Baked:


One of the best things about these is that they have great texture with their pineapple, raisins, and walnuts. Oh! And tons of carrots, of course, although you can't really feel the carrots.

I opened that one on purpose to get a picture of the inside.

So moist and tasty. I'd lower the sugar even more next time though.

HERE is the original recipe. I fixed it so that I could make 16 cupcakes instead of full cakes (cut everything in half, prepped the night before, and excluded the cream cheese frosting). Here's what I did:

• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup raisins (soaked in water overnight)
  
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cups white sugar *actually, a little less
  
• 1/2 cup canola oil (because I didn't have vegetable oil)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained (I measured & drained this the night before and then drained it again the day of)
  
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. In a medium bowl, combine grated carrots & brown sugar. Set aside for 60 minutes and then stir in raisins.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Grease and flour muffin/cupcake tins (I used one 12-cup tin and a 6-cup tin).
4. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light.
   
5. Gradually beat in the white sugar, oil and vanilla.
   
6. Stir in the pineapple.
   
7. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, stir into the wet mixture until absorbed.
8. Stir in the carrot mixture and the walnuts. Pour evenly into pans.
9. Bake for 30-ish minutes in the preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean.
   
10. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins + Burn Incident

These are TO DIE FOR (even after cutting the sugar in half). Or at least my mom, dad, former co-workers, and I think so. I decided to make these after seeing a picture of them on Pete's blog (I found his site while looking for food bloggers to interview for my Anthropology of Food class), and he got the recipe from the King Arthur Flour recipe site. Recipe below.


So many apple chunks! PERFECT!

Here's the burning incident story: I forgot to take out the trays and stuff in the oven before turning the oven on to 450 degrees--BAD! But at least the plastic cutting board wasn't in there. This is a good learning experience. This is what happens when you put a brownie pan directly on the oven's heat source (luckily there aren't any holes).

APPLE MUFFINS RECIPE (original recipe here; I changed the amounts of sugar):
*Makes 12*

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar (I cut this about in half)
1/4 cup brown sugar + another 1/4 cup brown sugar as topping (I cut both amounts in half)
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 apples (peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped--i used honey crisp like Pete did, but you can use pretty much any kind I think)

1. In a small bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter, the white sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar.
3. Add the egg and beat until fluffy.
4. Mix in the buttermilk gently (don’t overmix).
5. Stir in the flour mixture gently and fold in the apples.
6. Pour batter into 12 muffin cup liners.
7. Optional: Sprinkle muffins with 1/4 cup brown sugar.
8. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes.
9. After 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 400 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
10. Allow muffins to cool in muffin tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I'm definitely making these again! Most likely for my boss in a couple of weeks.