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.

Dorie’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies TWD

This past week was filled with more baking than usual. I made cookies and cupcakes for work, two TWD recipes and some lemon squares. Let me tell you, my trainer would so not be happy about the “choices” I made. That being said it was fun to bake up a storm and I really couldn’t send my baking out into the world without taste testing it. I made Dories Best Chocolate Chip Cookies with my niece. We love baking together and she is getting to be such a big girl that she was able to use the hand mixer all on her own. Here is evidence.

Fortunately, I had a party to go to on Sunday so I was able to bring plenty of baked goods with me, including these cookies. I have to say that although these are really good, I think I prefer my own go-to chocolate chip cookies (everyone is allowed a personal preference, right?) I used a mixture of semi-sweet, milk and white chocolate chips which added a little something extra. These are a crispier cookie so if that is what gets you going you won’t be disappointed. Head on over to Kait’s Place to see the recipe and what this week’s host, Kait, got up to. To see what other TWD bakers did, check out the list of participants, you may just find a new favourite blog.

Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars

Happy Christmas Eve! Hard to believe that Christmas is here, so exciting! Claire has arrived and I am excited, as we have an afternoon of baking planned (we should probably get on that!) When I was working on my Christmas baking, I sent Claire a bunch of recipes and asked her to choose  one. She choose this one. It was a nice break from all the cookies;  squares are so easy and so delicious.

I skipped the nuts, as you know, nuts aren’t a hit in our family. Also, I used some milk chocolate chips (goes without saying really). These squares are delicious, not really Christmas-y, but certainly a welcome addition to any tray of sweets.

Pumpkin Muffins

Once you open a can of pumpkin you are committed. The ones I end up buying have over three cups in them, which means three different pumpkin treats. I usually pick one thing that I want to make and then scrounge around finding recipes to finish off the can with. Last week though, I had two recipes that I needed to make so I only had to scrounge for one. This is it. Don’t get me wrong, I love muffins, but I sure wouldn’t open a can for them. But for a third choice, these are pretty good. Hopefully there will be posts coming on choices one and two;)

The best part about making these was that I got to try out my new square muffin tin. I got it in the summer (such as it was here in Ontario) but never got around to using it. Square is the new round in my books.

Pumpkin Muffins adapted from Company’s Coming Muffins & More (nothing wrong with Jean!)

1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup chocolate chips (The “real” recipe called for raisins but seriously chocolate is better)
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup milk

Combine first 8 ingredients. Mix together and then make a well in the middle. Then in another bowl, whisk egg. Add in sugar, butter, pumpkin and milk and mix well. Pour into the flour. Mix until blended, don’t over-stir. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Let stand for five minutes then remove from pan. Serve warm or not.

Sour Cream Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips

Back in the day I lived in Waterloo with Joy, Pam and Kristin. We had a couch in our kitchen and spent MANY hours there, drinking tea and trying to solve our problems and everyone else’s. There were white boards where we kept track of our Myer’s Briggs personalities and friends’ phone numbers and there was brown paper on the wall where we wrote random quotes, lists and posted pictures. Basically, it was a great house. One day Joy brought home a recipe for a sour cream banana cake and our lives (OK my life) have never been the same since.  We baked this cake for friends and ourselves, we took it camping, it was a go-to recipe and it remains my FAVORITE cake.

My favorite cake

We were fortunate enough to all be together this past weekend. Joy lives on the west coast but she was in town for a conference. In honour of Joy’s visit I threw a party. My apartment is MUCH smaller than our house was but it didn’t matter. We had a great evening and of course, it would have been wrong not to serve up the cake. I was so consumed with the party that I didn’t take a picture so I managed to grab a shot on Sunday. Disclosure: I ate that huge peice after I took a picture of it, as I said this is my favorite.

Sour Cream Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 cups mashed bananas
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (as you all can imagine I use milk but Pam, Joy and Kristin probably use semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an angel food pan or a 9 x 13 or a large bundt pan. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and bananas and mix well. In a separate bowl combine four, baking powder and baking soda. Mix alternatively the dry ingredients and the sour cream into the banana mixture. Pour half the batter into pan. Mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon and chocolate chips and sprinkle over the batter. Cover with remaining batter. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean (if you are using an angel food pan it will take longer). Allow to cool and ice with chocolate icing or not, it’s up to you.

The Marshall Street Crew

Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies: A go-to recipe

Everyone has a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. This has been mine for quite a while. Claire got the recipe from one of her elementary school classmates, Alicia H. Thus in our family, they are called the Alicia H. cookies. I think they would be better renamed as go-to chippers, perhaps I should work on that. These cookies are super easy and have few ingredients (key elements of go-to cookies) and most of all they are delicious.

Anyways, I made these a few weekends ago for my friend Ryan’s birthday. Ryan and I have been friends since grade nine and although we don’t see each other that often he is one of my oldest friends, and thus he holds a special place in my heart. Ryan lives in Montreal but he was in Toronto for his birthday so I decided to whip him up a batch of my go-to chippers (hmm it does roll off the keyboard quite easily).

My go-to chippers

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups and 4 tablespoons flour
2 cups chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet, Ghiradelli if I have them, or if I am feeling really wild a mixture of milk, white and semi-sweet)

Instructions

Preheat over to 325 degrees. Mix well the first seven indgredients (I used my stand mixer but it can certainly be done by hand). Add chocolate chips and stir well. Drop by spoonful  onto greased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper, choose your own adventure at this point). Bake at 325 for 10 minutes.