Mocha-Cocoa Muffins with Espresso Glaze

Well hello everyone!
I've neglected you, so sorry about that. But I have something that will cheer you up!
Mocha Cocoa Muffins :]

After a long weekend of studying, I couldn't imagine a better way to unwind than to make muffins. Like I do every Sunday, I scoped the web for a new recipe (and after a lemon-poppyseed disaster that I will probably re-attempt later) I found this recipe from Joy of Baking for mocha muffins. With a few slight alterations, they turned out amazingly!

Mocha-Cocoa Muffins with Espresso Glaze

You'll need:
2 eggs
1/2 C buttermilk (or milk w/ white vinegar added)
1/2 C canola oil
1/4 C espresso
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 C flour
1/4 C cocoa powder
1 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon 
1/2 tsp salt
1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
2 tbs esperesso
3 tbs powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 375º and line a muffin pan with muffin papers (I used cute polka-dotted papers). In a medium sized bowl, whisk the eggs, buttermilk, oil, espresso, and vanilla all together until well incorporated. Set this aside.
Then, in a larger bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and chocolate chips together.
Then, pour the wet ingredients into the larger dry ingredients bowl. Use a rubber spatula to fold the ingredients together. Be careful not to overmix... this will yield a tough muffin.
Next, fill the prepared muffin papers up about 3/4 full (I filled them a bit higher, but oh well!) Bake the muffins for 15-20 minutes. You might want to test them with a toothpick (and see if it comes out clean).

While you're baking the muffins, now would be a good time to make the glaze. Simply mix the powdered sugar and remaining espresso together and presto!

Once the muffins are room temperature, drizzle the glaze on top of the muffins in a swirly pattern. The glaze will harden in about 10 minutes so don't worry.
Take a moment to admire the glory of the mocha-cocoa muffin, and enjoy!

Donut-Muffins

So, how do you pull a bunch of designers out of those back-to-work-blues :( ?
...
I'm not sure if there is any universal answer to that question but what I did was make donut muffins. Well, they aren't really just donut muffins... it's more like.. if a muffin and a cake donut got together and had a baby, and then that baby went and fell in love with a churro- and then had another baby.. well that baby would be what I brought into the studio last Monday for Muffin Monday.

While I was quite happy to hear that these little nummy-nuggets NEVER see a deep fryer or anything like that... donot (donut! haha) be mistaken.. these muffins are by no means healthy- and are not for the faint-hearted... SO if your New Years resolution involved losing weight of any amount, you should file this recipe under your 'only once in a while' file.
My sister, Allison, e-mailed me this recipe after trying it for herself, and I made some of my own and some of her suggested changes. So, here we go!

Donut Muffins

You'll need:
(for the muffins)
2 C all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 C melted salted butter
1 C sugar
1 C milk

(for the magic cinnamon-sugar dusting)
1 C sugar
1/2 C melted butter
3 tsp cinnamon

With your oven preheated at 375º, take the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking powder, and baking soda and whisk them together in a bowl. Then, take the butter and stir it together with the sugar until the sugar starts to dissolve a little bit.

Then, add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir together. Then add the milk to loosen up the batter and stir until its smooth and goes from..
           

this

to this!

Next, spray a muffin pan with non-stick baking spray (no muffin papers this time, so you want to make sure the muffins won't get stuck in there) fill each muffin-well 3/4 of the way full with the batter, and bake them for 20-25 minutes. 

So, next comes the part that I nearly slapped myself for... but then resolved to only make these muffins once in a blue moon... prepare yourselves... it gets pretty decadent from here...

While the muffins are baking, take the cup of sugar and mix it together with the cinnamon. Place it into a shallow bowl or plate, and then put the melted butter into another shallow bowl/plate. When the muffins are done baking, remove them from the muffin pan, and (suppress the butter-panic-attack) quickly dip the muffin into the melted butter and roll in the cinnamon-sugar. Take a deep breath, resolve not to eat too many, and repeat.
 
These muffins are by far much yummier when eaten warm, but are still great at room temp. Even though the entire staff wasn't in the studio last week, the muffins still got eaten up! Horray! I'd like to think that our collective good mood was due mostly to the sugar-high from these muffins (haha)

Hope you enjoyed this sugar-high of a blog entry. Remember: if you're trying to eat healthily, eating decadent treats is something to be done in moderation. Now, go put someone into sugar-ecstasy.

Foodie foodie!!!!

Holiday Gingerbread Muffins

Hello lovelies! I was browsing through some of my pictures and realized that I'd totally forgotten to tell you about the gingerbread muffins I made for finals week! So, here we go!

On the Sunday night before finals week, I thought "well... Monday's normally suck pretty badly in the first place... but tomorrow is going to suck even moooooorreee! Finals start!" So, obviously, it would have been criminal to start the week without muffins (ugh! preposterous!) Someone in the studio had requested gingerbread muffins, so it was perfect: our last week before our holiday break and we needed a powerhouse Muffin Monday to get us through the trauma of finals week. Double-whammy.


Orange Gingerbread Muffins

I found this recipe on epicurious.com and made some adjustments and fine tuning. Here we go!


 
You'll need:
2 2/3c flour
1 tbs baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tbs ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick of salted butter (soft–but not melted– or at room temp)
1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
2/3 C dark molasses
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C water
3 tbs orange juice (fresh squeeze it!)
1 tsp sugar



First, preheat the oven to 350º and put muffin papers into a muffin baking pan. Then, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Set it aside. 



Now, take out your stand mixer or hand mixer (I used a hand mixer) and cream the butter and sugar together. Just a little reminder about the butter: it's better to leave it out beforehand if you know you're going to be baking... but if you're a bit forgetful like me and forget to leave it out, just pop it in the microwave–but beware! Don't let it get too soft in there and melt, because it could cause the consistency of the batter to turn out all wrong. You should aim for a stick of butter that is very very easy to mush when you touch it, but hasn't begun to melt yet. So, after you've gotten that all mixed in together, add the eggs one at a time. I've been told to try and get the eggs to room temperature too, but like I said, I'm forgetful. Normally I leave the eggs in a little bowl of hot/warm water while I'm mixing up all the dry ingredients and such, just to give them a little nudge toward room temp. After the eggs are all beaten in, then add the molasses and vanilla. (Quick tip: add a teensy but of vegetable oil to the measuring cup and swirl it around before the molasses goes in. It'll make pouring the molasses back out a lot faster and easier) 
Next, you'll add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in three parts (add a third, mix, add another third, mix... you get the picture...) Then you'll gradually add the water until it goes from looking like:

<--- This
               

                       To this! ------>





Horray! Now, fill your muffin papers 3/4 full and pop those babies into the oven! The original recipe that I read suggested that you bake these muffins for 25 minutes, but like I always say learn your oven! Mine were all good to go in 17 minutes! Big difference, huh?! It's good to keep a watchful eye when you're doing your first round of muffins– just to make sure they aren't getting too terribly toasty...

While those are baking, take the orange juice and stick into the microwave just for about 20 seconds or so. You just want to warm it up just a little. Then, add the sugar into the juice and mix it up until the sugar is dissolved. When the muffins are finished baking, take them out of the pan and place them onto a rack/towel/counter/whatever. While they're still warm, spoon a little bit of the orange juice mixture onto the top of the muffin and let it sink in. Horrah! Now, just let them cool off, stick them in a container, and bring them to your very excited coworkers!

Foodie foodie! 

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, and yummy holiday! More to come soon :)

Muffin Monday: Coffee Cake Muffins with a Hint of Lavender

Roughly every other Monday, yours truly brings home-made muffins down to the studio where I have my design internship. Here's what I figure... Mondays suck.. especially in the morning... Muffins, however, do not suck.

Muffins are lovely.

So: Mondays (which suck) + Lovely Muffins (which DO NOT suck)= Less-sucky-lovely-Mondays.

Got it?

This weekend, I found myself at the Saturday morning farmers market and stumbled across a little tent full of lavender supplies. Lavender pillows, lavender dryer bags, and these teeny bags of lavender that could be used in cooking. I had never cooked with lavender before, but I figured that this was the perfect opportunity! I bought the teesy bag of aroma-mazingness and meandered home with my fresh produce.

Unfortunately, the recipe that accompanied my cooking lavender (for sour cream lavender coffee cake) turned out to be a bit of a flop... lavender, brown sugar, pecans, vanilla, lemon, cinnamon... basically it was a big cluster-Fword. Don't get me wrong... I am all for complex flavors! Believe me, give me a good complex flavored morsel and you'll be my new pal... but in this case I found myself leaning toward the more simple side of things.

Photo I took at Pelindaba lavender farm, San Juan Island, Washington

After remembering a trip to Pelindaba lavender farms (on the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington) and the BEST vanilla lavender ice cream I have EVER consumed, I decided to keep with these two simple flavors: lavender and vanilla.

So, after adapting the given recipe to my own, more simple recipe (and cutting out a good amount of sugar) this is what I came up with:

Coffee Cake Muffins with a Hint of Lavender
1/2 C Butter (I used salted)
1 1/4 C Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 eggs
3/4 C sour cream
1 tsp crushed lavender buds
2 1/4 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

(for a lavender-sugar topping)
1/2 tsp crushed lavender buds
2 tsp sugar
A word of caution: don't go overboard with the lavender... it can be overpowering.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Make sure the butter is softened (not melted) or at room temperature. Cream the butter and sugar together until it is smooth (I use a hand mixer for this.) Add the vanilla, eggs, and sour cream and mix until incorporated. At this point, I decided to adopt the same philosophy for lavender that I have for salt and pepper while cooking savory food: do it at every step. So, now that I had mixed all of the wet ingredients together, now it was time to add a little lavender (and fold it in.)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make sure to whisk the dry ingredients really well, or even better, sift the ingredients first to eliminate any clumps. Then, combine the wet and dry ingredients and fold until they're just mixed together. Add lavender again now! Be sure not to over-mix the batter at this point. If you overdo it, the texture of the muffins may turn out all wrong.

Next, line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each cup 3/4 full. Now, take the extra lavender and mix it with the 2 tsp sugar. Sprinkle just a bit onto the top of each little muffin cup. Place in the oven for roughly 20 minutes or until they're golden brown on top. When they're done, remove them from the muffin pan and let them dry on a tea towel or cooling rack. This recipe should make about 18 or so muffins.

So there you have it: a simple, fluffly, delicous coffee cake muffin with just a hint of lavender!

Bet you wish you were my co-worker! Muaha.

Just a note: You will need a mortar and pestle in order to crush the lavender buds, most lavender is sold in bud-form and requires crushing. I got a teensy one at World Market for around $4!


Foodie Foodie!