Christmas Countdown- Christmas Morning Cranberry Muffins

Merry Christmas! Nothing says Christmas morning like a tasty baked good. When I saw the title of this recipe I knew I had to try it, especially because I have been on a cranberry kick these days. These muffins are in one of my most used cookbooks, Muffin Mania. If you don’t have one, I suggest you try and get your hands on one, it’s the best muffin cookbook around!

Christmas Morning Cranberry Muffins (adapted from Muffin Mania)

1 cup cranberries
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp all spice
1 beaten egg
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
3/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine

Coarsely chop cranberries. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar and set aside. Sift together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, all spice and make a well in the centre.

Combine egg, orange peel, orange juice and melted butter. Add all at once to the flour mixture stirring to moisten. Fold in cranberry mixture. Bake in greased muffin pan at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas Day filled with lots of love and good food. Happy Christmas!

Caroline & Claire

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

So I am on a bit of a muffin kick these days. I actually have a new set of muffins baking in the oven as I write this post. In my mind, a muffin is a great treat from breakfast all the way to a midnight snack and anywhere in between. I myself am a mid-morning snack muffin girl. I recently borrowed my Mum’s Muffin Mania cookbook with the intention of trying out a few new recipes. Muffin Mania, in my mind, is the classic muffin book. Recently, a number of my friends and I have discovered that our mums all use their banana muffin recipe! Also, I have a feeling there will be some muffin baking required for the wedding so I am trying to taste test a few recipes!

I was drawn to this recipe because I had previously made a batch of peanut butter muffins that didn’t win me over. Thankfully, Muffin Mania pulled through! These are a tasty little muffin and something I would make again. The original recipe didn’t call for chocolate chips, but if you have read our blog for a while, you know we love to add chocolate where possible!

Peanut Butter Muffins
Source: Muffin Mania
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
1/4 cup butter (I used margarine)
1 cup milk
2 beaten eggs
~3/4 cup chocolate chips
Mix dry ingredients and cut in peanut butter and butter until mixture is crumbly.
Add eggs, milk and chocolate chips and stir until moistened.
Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
Options: sprinkle muffins before baking with mixture of chopped peanuts and sugar or after baking, brush tops with melted jelly and dip in chopped peanuts.

Citrus Sunshine Muffins-TWD

Wow, it has been a long time since there has been activity on the blog!  It has been a busy month for both Caroline and I, but rest assured we have some good recipes coming soon which should hopefully make up for our neglectfulness this past month.

First off, a new Tuesdays with Dorie post! I spent a good portion of this past weekend on the 401 between Ottawa and Toronto, being a good sister and attending Caroline’s birthday party! I stopped in Kingston on Saturday while en route to Toronto to visit my mum. I made these muffins for her hoping that they would  bring a little sunshine into her weekend.

My mum and dad had these with tea after I left, and they were enjoyed by both. I had a taste of one on Friday night when they were just out of the oven and they tasted quite nice! I made a few adjustments to the recipe including blueberries instead of raisins and margarine instead of butter (for a slightly more healthy muffin).

Thanks to Lauryn of Bella Baker for choosing this weeks recipe. They certainly were a nice intro to some more spring-like baking. You can head over to Lauryn’s blog to get the recipe or it can be found on page 7 of BFMHTY.

Cheers,
Claire

Great Grains Muffins TWD

I love muffins. There are no two ways about it. I have a preference for banana and pumpkin but really I will eat any kind possible. And of course, they are even better if they contain chocolate. I made these last night and I have to say that I dig them. Not as much as the lemon blueberry muffins from a few weeks ago (Dorie outdid herself on those ones!) but those contained lemon curd. Hands down, no competition, these ones didn’t have a chance, but regardless they were good. I really dug the cornmeal and maple. When I offered some to S. he said “sure, they sound healthy!” I sheepishly replied “well, I added chocolate chips” and he said “Of course you did. That’s my girlfriend.” In my defense, I think that the chocolate chips really added something.

If you want to try these out for yourself, you can head on over to Christine’s blog Happy Tummy for the recipe or better yet check out Baking: From my Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Caroline

Lemon Poppyseed (and Blueberry) Muffins- TWD

Let me just say that I now believe that all lemon muffins should have lemon curd in them. The sheer genius of that is unparalleled. I was fortunate enough to have a little container of lemon curd in my freezer and when I saw that suggestion in the playing around section I jumped on it. I am smitten with these muffins. Basically you make them as normal but put a tsp or so of lemon curd in the middle. Scrumptious.

Now I am not the biggest poppyseed fan so I made half with blueberries. They IMHO were superior. But I guess that’s a preference. I didn’t glaze them as I am taking them to my parent’s house this weekend and I needed to freeze them. I will confess that I had two for supper on Sunday night. My coworker commented that muffins aren’t the healthiest dinner. But what about the blueberries and lemons? Aren’t they healthy;)

Thanks to Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness for picking this recipe. BTW I love the header on Betsy’s blog, so pretty!

Caroline

PS We are hosting the Tuesdays with Dorie crowd in February!!!! It was really hard to pick a recipe. In case your wondering, it’s of the chocolate variety. Stay tuned.

Pumpkin Muffins TWD Rewind!

Hey, it’s me Caroline. Have you been wondering where I am? Claire has been holding down the fort here while my life has been a little topsy-turvey. December was a wild month for me. I finished one job, packed my apartment, moved to a new city, started a new job and wrote a 20ish page term paper. Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of time for baking and blogging. Now that doesn’t mean I didn’t bake, but when I did, I didn’t manage to take photos. So many thanks to Claire, who has been busy herself planning a wedding, for looking after our little piece of cyber-space.

 

Pumpkin Muffins

I actually baked a rewind in November, knowing that things would be crazy in December, but it got eaten before I had a chance to take a photo. My bad. This one almost was a miss too, as I left my camera in Toronto, forgotten in all the Christmas festivities. So I snapped a photo with my cell phone. Obviously, it isn’t stellar but what can you do. These pumpkin muffins were delicious. I, of course, used chocolate chips instead of raisins. For the recipe head on over here where Kelly made a great pick!

I hope to be back in the baking game in the New Year (which I MUST share as I have a bridesmaid to fit into in a few short months!) Hope you all have a wonderful NYE!

Coffee Break Muffins TWD

I love coffee. I can’t go a day without it, the darker the better. That being said, I don’t always choose coffee flavoured food. But given that Claire just finished her old job, and has a week off before starting a new one, I thought I better be a good big sister (is it weird that I still refer to her as my little sister and Sarah as my big sister?) and make this weeks recipe so she can focus on fun.

I whipped them up last night and I’ll be honest, at first I wasn’t impressed. I added chocolate chips (because they were begging for them) but otherwise stuck to the recipe. I ate one hot out of the oven and was underwhelmed. I like to bring my baked goods to work and today I gave them out apologetically. However, when I got around to having one, I was impressed by them. They were actually very tasty. I mean, I have my favourite muffin recipes and this isn’t likely to upstage them, but they were pretty darn good. Thanks to Rhiani of Chocoholic Anonymous for picking this recipe.

Caroline

Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins TWD

I love these muffins. That’s pretty much all I have to say.  I whipped these up tonight and have packed them up for S. to take home. He taste tested them and gave them a thumbs up. I asked for more descriptions but he couldn’t come up with any winning quotes so you will just have to take my word on them.

Thanks to Natalie of Oven Love for such a great pick! Be sure to head on over to her blog for the recipe.

Caroline

PS I went back to work today after a nice summer break. We should be posting a little more regularly around here now that I am home. All I have baked all summer are crisps. But really what more do you need in the summer but fruit, sugar and an oat mixture?

Banana Buttermilk Muffins

I usually stick to my favourite banana muffin recipe; however, I had some leftover buttermilk from my Valentine’s Day cupcakes, so I went searching for a new recipe to try out!

Caroline mentioned something about us trying to post a few more “healthy” recipes on the blog, so I figured I might as well make a healthy banana muffin:)  Not to mention, the bf just today requested a healthy snack he could take to work with him. Finding food to take to work in the pharmacy is a little tricky, especially when most food is eaten while you are standing up! So little snacks throughout the day tend to be important!

As previously mentioned, I don’t like adding nuts to most muffin recipe but since the bf enjoys walnuts, I made a few sans nuts for myself, and then added nuts to the remainder of the muffins. I found this recipe at She Bakes and She Cooks and it looked quite good! Although I love my other banana muffin recipe, I think these were very yummy and make a slightly healthier alternative. I will definitely make these again.

Our favourite banana muffins

These are my favourite muffins. My mum has been making this recipe for as long as I can remember and they are definitely a family favourite. I have made them countless times but most recently I made them for my mum when she had a number of  guests stay for the weekend. Sometimes I add chocolate chips for a little something extra but this time I stuck to the basic recipe. Caroline made them this weekend to welcome an old friend to the city; there is nothing homier than banana muffins.

Over the years I have looked for a copy of the book this recipe comes from. But it was out of print and so I have always been very jealous of my mum’s copy. So tonight as I was writing this post I typed it into google just to make sure I got the credits right for the book and guess what!? Muffin Mania is back in print! Check it out. Clearly it was fate that I made this recipe tonight and have oodles of time for searching the internet. I’m going to have to order a copy!

Now onto the recipe!

Best Ever Banana Muffins
From: Muffin Mania
3 large bananas
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup melted butter

Mash bananas. Add sugar and slightly beaten egg. Add the melted butter. Add the dry ingredients and bake at 375 degrees F for about 20 minutes.