Yes, more muffins. I find another trick to get those high dome rises out of muffins is to heat the muffin tray inside the oven while it is preheating...this worked well for me today while baking my Sugar and Spice muffins. They are basically Chocolate Chip Muffins with a twist. I put dark soft brown sugar in them instead of caster. This makes them as dark as bran muffins. Very tasty!

Look at the nice dome top:

I had a pretty good day today. I went out to eat with my friend at a place called Giraffe. Lovely ambiance. First brandy and coke that I had in a long time, and because they didn't know how to make one properly, I got twice as much for 1/2 the price. :) We split enchiladas and nachos, and my friend farted all the way home. I'm half kidding.

Äh, han brukar protestera när vi är borta eller när det är något annorlunda när han ska sova men det brukar bara ta ett par bråkiga läggningar och sen är den "krisen" över. Hoppas att det fungerar på samma sätt nu också. Helt enkelt så måste det funka nu, han kan väl inte hålla på och sova inne i vårt sovrum tills han typ är ett heller?? Nä, både han och jag kommer nog att sova bättre om han får eget rum. Och jag kan ÄNTLIGEN ta tag i att städa ur min garderob. Det har varit lite svårt att göra det hittills eftersom han sovit i vårt sovrum och man vill ju inte störa allt för mycket när han sover.

Jag var iväg till Babyland idag också och köpte en solskärm till nya vagnen. Så nu behöver inte lillplutten bli solbränd heller! En sväng in på Jula tog jag också och köpte "Molly" för att vi skulle kunna skruva upp hyllorna i Elis rum. Bilder kommer snart, lovar!! Det är ju faktiskt inte riktigt klart. Flygplanen ska klistras upp på riktigt och så ska jag måla hans lilla fåtölj. Kanske att jag målar hyllan som Stefan skruvade upp också, blå så att den flyter ihop med himlen. Vi får se vad jag orkar :D Sen ska Stefan scanna ett tyg som jag köpte på Tradera med små bär- och frukt-barn på, när det är gjort ska vi göra små söta tavlor och sätta upp också. Ett blåbär här, ett nypon där, en vattenmelon där :P Dom är såååå söta!

Sen åkte jag till Willys också och handlade upp hela barnbidraget.

Nu står Stefan och lagar mat, jag har bakat muffins på getost och soltorkade tomater, jättegoda! Prova vettja.. det är mitt egna ihoprörda recept, här kommer det:

Tomat- & getostmuffins
12 stycken i muffinsplåt

5 dl vetemjöl
2 1/2 tsk bakpulver
1/2 tsk salt
Ca 8 soltorkade tomater i olja
3 ägg
1/2 dl olja från de soltorkade tomaterna
2 dl Kesella
1 dl mjölk
100 g getost

Sätt ugnen på 200°C. Blanda ihop mjöl, salt och bakpulver.
Vispa ihop äggen med oljan från tomaterna och Kesella, rör
ner det i mjölet och häll sen i mjölken. Skär tomaterna i
smala strimlor, blanda ner det i smeten tillsammans med
getosten som du smular ner. Klicka ut smeten och grädda
i mitten av ugnen ca 20 min. Smaskiga :)

Nä, nu är det dags för middag. Stefan är klar med Tom Kha-soppan, ska bli gott det med.

You know how it is: these things are always there, and so close, and you know you'll get to them one day... and then never do.

I vowed to do them all.

Or at least a couple.

I have never been berry picking. Apples yes (and pears, and some nasty end-of-season peaches, which devolved into a game of peach pitching, which in turn ended with a mighty Sploosh of rotten peaches all over my jeans and much general hilarity - but I digress). Berries no. All summer I kept meaning to take Sirus out to Thacher Park, about a half hour drive from our house, and there was a berry patch on the way.

So that's what we did one lovely Tuesday afternoon. It was actually quite overcast and threatening to rain, but that didn't matter. I was on a mission. We fled Albany into the far flung suburbs where the water lines don't even run, to a patch of strawberries hugging the easements around electric towers (minor pause to wonder what happens if a thunderstorm strikes, but I just refused to go there). Sirus burst from the hatch like a steam engine, flying three times around the wooden shack where the local teenager collects the cash. Said teenager was clearly worried about this craziness on four legs and instructed that I keep Pups well away from the berries. We picked our way carefully through the vines. I tied her to an apple tree and she happily sniffed the crazy country smells as I bent over and plucked juicy red berries from their nest.

It's an undeniable rush to pick your own food, a connection directly from the ground to the bowl and eventually to the car, table and mouth. And then I realized what a luxury it truly was to pick berries, that I could dash in, play around and leave, without any of the hard labor of sowing and fertilizing and rising before dawn of actual farming - I got all the easy parts and none of the really hard work, and I felt absolutely decadent and a bit guilty all at once.

And let me also add that $12 worth of grocery store strawberries is enough for smoothies for, say, a week. While $12 worth of hand-picked berries was good for smoothies for two - and strawberry-lemon-ginger muffins (which didn't rise, I think I need new baking powder) and strawberry oatmeal bars (the best of which I can say is that I know how I'm tweaking the recipe in the future) and strawberries for salads and enough strawberries in general that, by the end of the week, I craved blueberries.

Next Post: Intrepid Traveler vs. Zen Yogis, and the yogis send me packing

After much searching i have found what claims to be the "best muffin recipe ever!" so it would be rude not to try it, especially as Sainsbuggers had organic raspberries reduced to 20p a punnet last night.

I'll post a piccy and an update once i have tried them.

UPDATE!

Yum make them do it do it they are yummy.

As soon as I got home from the gym, I turned my oven on to 400F, and it stayed on for approximately four hours, blasting heat throughout the kitchen.  While the oven preheated, I sliced up the remaining two stalks of ruby red rhubarb, and put it in a pan with the sugar, corn starch, water and lemon juice which enabled the mixture to become not only sweet, but viscous as well. 

I let it simmer under very low heat during the time in which I was busy mixing the dry and wet ingredients for the muffins.

While letting it simmer, I checked on the mixture frequently and stirred it often to ensure that not only was the rhubarb not sticking to the pan, but also so that the sugar was not burning and creating a nasty flavor. 

Working with shortening is definitely not something I was accustomed to.  The recipe calls for melted shortening, which I did so by putting it in the microwave for a minute.  Even though I left the eggs and milk out, to become room temperature (a key to baking), when I added the melted shortening to it, the shortening again clumped and nearly crystallized.  This reaction, of course is due to the varying temperatures of all of the ingredients.  After several minutes in the mixer with the dry ingredients, all crystals and clumps went away, and I was left with smooth batter.

I filled each muffin tin halfway with batter, then spooned some rhubarb in the middle, and dolloped more batter on top, then sprinkled the un-baked muffins some streusel (flour, sugar and butter) top top it off.  Multiple times of doing this (30 muffins to be exact), I put the muffins in the oven for ~25 minutes until golden brown on top.  They were sooooo awesome, and despite using shortening, I could not feel my arteries clogging. 

I made these muffins for the family today and they are absolutely delicious...and healthy!  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup - whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup - all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsps - toasted wheat germ (available in cereal aisle)
• 2 tbsps - brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/2 tsp - baking soda
• 1/8 tsp - salt
• 1/2 cup - ripe mashed mango (approx 2 lrg mangoes)
• 1 tbsp plus 1 & 1/2 tsps - vegetable oil
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp - skim milk
• 1 tsp - dark rum (I used spiced rum to add a kick of flavor)
• 1/4 tsp - coconut extract
• 1/4 tsp - almond extract

Preparation:

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in the center of the mix.  Next, combine mango, oil, egg, milk, rum and flavorings; add liquid mix to dry ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Spoon batter into greased and floured muffin pans.  Fill 3/4 full.  Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.  Remove from pans and let cool slightly on wire rack.

Makes 18 mini muffins, or 9 regular-sized muffins

Do you absolutely love wonderful food? We’ve just introduced some absolutely scrumptious new muffins – Blueberry-Oatmeal.  The first 19 guests finished every crumb and begged for more. If you can’t visit the Inn just now, try our blueberry-oatmeal recipe, which is displayed on our web site. They taste better than the photo looks!

Regardless of the reason though, I ate plenty today.

Started off with a whole lot of fruits topped with yogurt and the last of my old, burnt, homemade granola. Fruits in the bowl included frozen banana, mango, strawberries and blueberries, and I also had a bunch of grapes during the fruit chopping process.

I was in a baking mood today and have been wanting to bake something to finish off our big container of strawberries that were starting to go bad, so I opted for this tasty and healthy sounding recipe. The only changes I made to this Strawberry Banana recipe, which I made into a loaf plus four muffins, were that I also added approx. 2 T of maple syrup because I'm big on sweets and thought it could use a little more sweetness, and I also added some blueberries in addition to the strawberries because I didn't quite have enoughs strawberries and also wanted to finish off our blueberries.

This tasted pretty darn good once slightly cooled out of the oven, but I can't wait to try it tomorrow. Banana bread alone is always way better the second day around, so I would imagine a banana and berry bread would be absolutely amazing after all of the delicious berry juices have had time to melt into and infuse themselves throughout the whole of the loaf. As you can see though, the term 'loaf' might not be the best for me to use, considering a loaf usually has a big more height to it... I guess maybe some baking soda would have been in order here to make this rise a bit? I'm no expert in the technicalities of baking ingredients. No biggie though, I like a dense loaf anyway. I snacked on a fair bit of this.

Lunch was the rest of the canned chunk chicken I opened up yesterday, this time mixed with FF mayo, FF sour cream and buffalo sauce. It was creamy and awesome.

Later in the afternoon I wasn't overly hungry but had a strange cereal craving that I could just not get out of my head. I did try to wait it out but no luck. So I had several spoonfuls of the crunchy granola bottom-of-the-bag stuff from the Flax Plus Pumpkin Raisin Crunch box.

Then I went to the mall with a friend and did some (ehem a LOT) of shopping. I spent way too much money and probably got more clothes than I needed. But I love a good shopping trip that ends in a good haul, and I haven't really had one of those since I started working more so I think it was about time for one, especially now that so much stuff is on sale. I got shorts, capris and many a tank top, plus some earrings and sunglasses.

We also had dinner at the mall and I wasn't hungry at first from eating all that cereal so I put it off, but eventually I needed to eat something so I opted for half a veggie and cheese sandwich from a little soup and sandwich place in the food court. I loaded it up with tons of veggies, some shredded cheddar and honey mustard on a slice of whole wheat. It was good but messy/hard to eat from the veggie stack, and it wasn't all that filling. Hope you enjoy the *high* quality greatness that is my cell phone camera. I never seem to have my camera with me when I eat out, but even if I did, cell phone pics are much more discrete. Still haven't reached the level of comfort of being able to pull out my camera at just any ol public place yet.
I also had several bites of my friend's creamy (and therefore purely fatty) pasta salad.

Then I eventually got home. And was of course hungry. So I had some bread with hummus and polished off the container of cottage cheese. Then I ate some carrots, mushrooms and orange pepper with dijonnaise. Managed at least one picture of my late night snacking here...

Then I had some more raw veggies. Then some lettuce with sweet onion dressing and feta. THEN I finished off the last of a big yogurt container. Then I finally called it quits.

I ate quite a bit today but at least majority was healthy stuff. And on top of the many hours of shopping walking, I also did a good Tae bo workout in the early afternoon.

Now I'm exhausted and ready for bed. This is the first time I've opted to stay in on a Friday night in quite a while. Go me! And I don't feel the least bit regretful about it. I must really need the rest tonight.

The first is a winner even though I can't abide the taste of coffee.
(the muffin-making-process is documented here)

CAPPUCCINO CHIP MUFFINS

2C flour
3/4C sugar
2 1/2t baking powder
2t instant coffee
1/2t salt
1/2t ground cinnamon

1C milk
125g butter, metled
1 egg
1t vanilla essence

3/4C chocolate chips

Filling:

100g cream cheese
1T sugar
1/2t vanilla essence
1/2t coffee powder

Cut muffins in half, spread on filling and sprinkle with grated chocolate.

OOOOOH lookit.....these posts have been appearing over the past week without me doing anything - I've timestamped about three week's worth! And today, guess what.....J12 made these very muffins)

And a treat for the kiddies.

CHOCO-MALLOW MUFFINS

2 3/4C flour
2 1/2t baking powder
1/2C cocoa
3/4C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2C white chocolate chips
1/2C dark chocolate chips

100g butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2C milk

After you've made the muffins (like this) and they've cooled down a bit, combine the following and liberally spoon it on top.

150g dark chocolate, melted
2T butter, melted
1/4C glace cherries
1/4C unsalted roasted peanuts

Decorate with more cherries and peanuts and lots of marshmallows too.

3 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 teaspoons (rounded) baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ginger
1 cup milk
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs

Mix all ingredients. If desired, add 1/4 cup raisins and 1/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts. Fill sprayed muffin tins almost to top. Bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

Makes 14-15 muffins.

Firstly, I do believe I have found the world's best chocolate muffin recipe (yes, really). Thanks once again to Dorie and her amazing substitution ideas combined with the unfaltering user-friendly recipes from Leiths Baking Bible I have discovered what just might be the perfect combination of liquids to use when baking (see recipe).

Secondly, check out the funky packaging!!!

Now, I'm not claiming to be the first person to have thought of transporting mini-muffins in an egg carton. In fact, I'd be quite surprised if no one's thought of it before! BUT, I am nonetheless pleased with my clever discovery.

Triple Chocolate Muffins (adapted from Leiths Baking Bible)

Ingredients:

285g self-raising flour

55g cocoa powder

225g soft light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

85g butter, melted

175ml evaporated milk

100ml buttermilk

55g white chocolate chips

55g dark chocolate chips

85g milk chocolate chips

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180C

2. Combine flour, cocoa and sugar and whisk to combine

3. Combine egg, butter and both milks in a jug and add to the dry ingredients, mixing carefully.

4. Add chocolate chips and mix well.

5. Spoon into muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes (15 minutes if baking mini-muffins)

6. Cool on wire rack and enjoy!

Makes 12 muffins plus 12 mini muffins, or 36 minis, or 18 muffins, or 6-10 jumbo muffins or one really, really big muffin. Mmmmm..... giant muffin......

Note: The evaporated milk may be substituted for milk and buttermilk for soured cream (as was in the original recipe), but I do find that the evaporated milk made the mix extremely creamy with a lovely, sticky mouth-feel, while the buttermilk gave it a fairly light crumb. Mix and match to figure out what suits you!

Bananen-Walnuss-Muffins

120 g Butter (geschmolzen)
100 g Zucker
3 sehr reife Bananen
2 Eier
220 g Mehl
50 g gehackte Walnüsse
12 Walnuss-Hälften zum Verzieren
1 TL Backpulver
1/2 TL Natron
evtl. 1 El Milch

Das Mehl in einer großen Schüssel mit dem Backpulver, dem Natron und den Nüssen mischen.
In einer anderen Schüssel die Bananen mit dem Zucker zerdrücken, die geschmolzene, lauwarme Butter unterrühren, die Eier in einer Tasse verrühren, zugeben und alles gut mischen. Diesen flüssigen Teig nun nach und nach zu der Mehlmischung geben und mit einer Gabel zu einem Teig verrühren. Wird der Teig zu fest, etwas Milch zugeben. 

2 Formen für jeweils 6 mittelgroße Muffins mit Papierförmchen auslegen und jeweils 2 EL von dem Teig hineingeben. Die Förmchen sollen nur zu 2/3 gefüllt sein. Jedes Muffin mit einer Walnuss-Hälfte verzieren. 

Die Muffins im vorgeheizten Ofen ca. 15-20 Minuten backen (Umluft 150°, Ober- und Unterhitze 175°) bis sie gleichmäßig leicht gebräunt sind. Im Ofen auskühlen lassen.

2C flour
4t baking powder
1/2t salt
1/2C sugar

75g butter, melted
1 egg
3/4C milk
425g tin fruit salad, drained

Filling (to be spread into cooked muffins just before serving):

2T butter
3/4C milk
Heat together in a suacepan

1T cornflour
2T icing sugar
1 small egg, beaten
Mix together. Add to suacepan and cook until thickened.

1/2t vanilla essence
Add and allow to cool

RHUBARB MUFFINS

2C flour
4t baking powder
1/2t salt
3/4C sugar

1C milk
100g butter, melted
1 egg

1 1/2C finely chopped rhubarb (yes, uncooked)
(alternatively you can use any stewed fruit)

yummy optional topping to be sprinkled over:
3T raw sugar
1T cinnamon
These need to be cooked at a higher temperature than most muffins ~ 220ºC for a good 20 minutes. Rest of directions are the same as here though. They are best to be left for an hour or two before eating and are EXCELLENT the next day. Good for picnics, or for preparing ahead of time.