May 2013
7 posts
5 tags
Lemon Yogurt Muffins
I’m blogging these for the sake of…education, I guess. I didn’t love these. The texture lacked that fluffiness I like in a lemon muffin, and the flavor was okay but not really enough to make up for it. Maybe a more seasoned baker can take a look and let me know what I did wrong. (Huh? Can you? Please?)
This recipe was all about prep, so I started by zesting and juicing the...
9 tags
Wheat Germ Bread
I know, it doesn’t sound tasty, does it? Wheat Germ Bread. Wheat Germ Bread? How is a person supposed to get excited about that?
Well, taste it. Because once you taste it, you’ll get it, and once you find out how easy it is to make, you’ll make it, and once you start eating it, your taste buds and your belly will smile upon you with gratitude. This bread is just light and...
5 tags
Chocolate and Cinnamon Chip Espresso Oat Muffins
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I won’t pretend they’re pretty, but they sure are delicious.
This is a grown-up sort of muffin. The espresso flavor is strong, the oats give the muffins a density that makes them nice and filling, and the only real sweetness comes from the chips. So don’t make these for kids and expect accolades, but hand them off to the grown-ups (young and old) and...
11 tags
Cinnamon Molasses Muffins
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If you like molasses, these are the muffins for you. They’re definitely a little intense. You could un-intense them successfully, I think, by substituting half the molasses for honey, but I found that people really liked the depth of flavor i these and I was surprised by how quickly they were gobbled up.
The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of flour, so I used whole...
8 tags
Blood Orange Wheat Germ Muffins
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These muffins have turned me on to a whole new world of wheat germ. They taste SO good, full of orange flavor, contained in this wonderfully textured, soft, substantial muffiny package.
I started by zesting the oranges. The recipe called for a teaspoon of zest, but I used two instead.
I also juiced the oranges, and set all that aside for later.
I used whole wheat white...
7 tags
Blood Orange Tea Muffins (mini)
Mini muffins!
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A while back I made some delicious Meyer Lemon Tea Muffins, only I didn’t realize they were supposed to be mini muffins so I only ended up with 9 of them. Since they were delicious, I decided to give them another shot, this time using blood oranges instead of lemons. And behold: mini muffins. Delicious, soft, fluffy mini muffins.
I started with some...
10 tags
Oatmeal Cookie Muffins with Cappuccino Chips
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Let’s just say that these live up to their name. They stick to the paper a little bit, but what’s a little paper when you’re devouring a sweet delicious healthy muffin full of cappuccino chips? A minor inconvenience.
I made some modifications to the recipe, starting with replacing a little bit of the flour with wheat germ and flax. I used a tablespoon and a...
April 2013
13 posts
9 tags
Chai Spiced Vanilla Bean Muffins
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These are strange and tasty little muffins. An adult sort of taste, but we’ll test that theory in the morning when Nathaniel wakes up. My original plan was to make something for the kids to eat while I’m away over the next few days, but I think I’ll have to whip something else together in the morning that’s a little more kid-friendly.
The recipe...
12 tags
Blood Orange and Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
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Sometimes an ingredient shortage can work in your favor. For want of a few more blood oranges, some Meyer lemons were used, and born out of the uncertainty of that unusual pairing, some poppy seeds were added. Thus, a brand new muffin emerged, and a very delicious one at that.
My intention was simply to make another batch of blood orange muffins, based on my very slight...
10 tags
Blood Orange Pound Cake
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I finally fixed the white balance on my camera. (Apologies for the previous two non-white-balanced blog entries.)
I also found blood oranges at our local grocery store.
I celebrated these events by baking with the oranges and taking pictures of the results. I thought it might be fun to take one of my favorite Meyer Lemon recipes and use blood oranges instead, so I went back...
9 tags
Honey Pumpkin Bran Muffins
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I still had the white balance settings wrong for this entire batch of photos and it’s annoying me because these muffins were really delicious and you can’t even see their true beauty. Trust me, they looked lovely.
I found these in the bottom depths of one of my Pinterest boards. Sometimes I just load the whole thing and scroll down that seemingly endless page to...
10 tags
Banutter Bites
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I invented these.
I had some overripe bananas, which I had to protect with a label or our cleaning lady would have thrown them away:
I also had an itch to do something new, a craving for peanut butter (which is really just status quo around here, “around here” being inside my body), and a fresh jar of Nutella, requested by Nathaniel.
Since my signature Banana...
4 tags
Peanut Butter Cookies
Sometimes, in the middle of all the healthy baking, it’s time to make something for the kids. They put up with the bran stuff and the pumpkin whatnot for a while, but they’ve become pretty blasé about all the (what I think are) goodies coming out of the kitchen. So this past weekend, I asked them what they wanted, and they wanted peanut butter cookies, and more specifically, they...
10 tags
Pumpkin Muffins, made over and still delicious
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I’ve made these before, but I put a spin on them this time: I wanted to know if I could make them healthier without compromising on deliciousness. And the answer: a resounding yes.
I’ve been looking for a formula for a long time that would cover how to add flax and wheat germ to a recipe without ruining it, and I finally found it. So the first thing I did was look...
6 tags
Whole Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread
I made this one night last week, when I wanted something hearty and robust and satisfying but not sweet and dessert-y. I know, that sounds weird. But I was after something that would ground me a little. And thus I made this delightful bread.
I started with whole wheat pastry flour, which always makes me happy with its whole wheat pastry-ness. To that I added whole wheat white flour, rolled...
9 tags
Coconut Banana Bread
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Coconut banana bread, who knew? I had many doubts about this one as I was making it and AGAIN messed up with something egg-related (see Cocoa Banana Yogurt Muffins for another egg near miss) but but in the end, it turned out great and was also immensely popular.
The recipe called for sweetened coconut, so Dave volunteered to go pick it up while I got started on the dry...
12 tags
Cocoa Banana Yogurt Muffins (a Laurie original)
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Yesterday, I played with my tried-and-true banana yogurt muffin recipe to see if I could add in some cocoa powder without ruining it.
I’ve also been playing with my camera. My photography class started yesterday, and I got cocky and started shooting on manual, which turned out to be something of a disaster as I do not have the steadiest of hands. So many blurry shots! ...
11 tags
Maple Pumpkin Mini Muffins
These have been on my to-try list for months. I’m so glad I finally made them! They taste far too delicious to be as healthy as they are, too. And the timing is good, I’m back on Weight Watchers and these puppies are only ONE P+ each. And they are treats you can have for breakfast. Win-win.
Also, as a nice bonus, the recipe comes from a blog called Adventures of the Yankee Kitchen Ninja. The...
7 tags
Malted Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter Chip...
I’ve made these before — they’re Dave’s favorites. But I made them again, with some small alterations, because the kids have both just had ear infections and they felt these would help. And why not?
The tricky part, though, is that Juliet doesn’t really like chocolate chips. She likes chocolate kisses, or chocolate that comes wrapped in something and can live on...
Meyer Lemon Yogurt Muffins
These were…meh. The flavor came through nicely after the muffins had been sitting for a day, and the texture settled a little, but spectacular they were not.
I was going to make mini muffins as the recipe suggested, but I had these beautiful, spring-themed muffin papers that Marcie bought for me and I thought lemon muffins would provide the perfect opportunity to try them out. See? It...
March 2013
18 posts
11 tags
Oatmeal Muffins
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These are delightful.
I took a very basic, healthy recipe that I found on food.com, read the reviews, made it mine, and created deliciousness. If I achieve nothing else over the weekend, at least there’s that.
I kept very little of the original, but I started out exactly as directed, by letting a cup of rolled oats soak in a cup of (1%) milk for an hour.
Juliet and...
I Miss My Yoga Teacher Muffins -- Honey Sage Corn...
Not only are these pretty tasty, they were made in honor of one of my yoga teachers, Nancy, who I have been missing terribly since they changed things up at the studio I go to and she doesn’t teach there anymore. I loved her class, and I miss her teaching as well as her company. When I emailed her to tell her so, she asked if I would make some healing muffins in her honor, with sage...
9 tags
Peanut Butter Pound Cake
This was my birthday cake.
This was one of the most decadent things I’ve ever made.
This was also the best cake I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.
I may have to make it again next year.
It started with two sticks of butter.
Then, the first two cups of sugar. (The first two, I said.) Cane sugar, to start.
I beat those together.
And in went another cup of sugar, this...
10 tags
Salted Espresso Oatmeal Cookies
I’ve made these before, but this time I added a twist.
I made them at Christmas, and instead of using regular chocolate chips I used Christmas-colored red & green chips, but this time I really took these to another level flavor-wise by substituting half of the chocolate chips for cappuccino chips, freshly arrived from the King Arthur Flour company.
These are fun because they appeal...
9 tags
Carrot Bran Muffins
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These muffins. These muffins! The fact that they are so healthy and good for you makes no sense with how delicious they taste. And I took a risk with these, changing the recipe mid-process, on a whim. A crazy, carrot- bran whim! I never knew there was such a thing.
Once the carrots were grated, the rest was a breeze. Grating carrots sure is messy, though.
There were little...
6 tags
Blood Orange Poppy Seed Muffins
I’ve decided that there’s a property peculiar to baked goods with blood oranges in them: it’s all about the second bite. Just like the Blood Orange Muffins I’ve made before, the first bite is a little confusing to the palate, but the second one rolls in all the flavor and goodness the muffin has to offer. It’s an odd, very specific phenomenon.
Blood oranges are a...
8 tags
Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies
I know, there’s been a lot of citrus lately. I feel desperate to play with Meyer lemons and blood oranges while they’re still around, plus it helps remind me that spring is coming, despite the really weird snowfall we had yesterday.
Full confession: before I made these, I tried to make some kind of low fat oatmeal cinnamon cookies using the one overripe banana we had in the house....
7 tags
Pumpkin Espresso Bread
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Another home run. Make this bread right now. I mean it. It couldn’t be easier and your taste buds will thank you, as will anyone else who gets a bite. I brought some of this to work with me and had someone come back for thirds. Who says you have to wait for fall to bake with pumpkin?
And the topping…to think I almost didn’t include it. How dumb that would...
8 tags
Greek Yogurt and Coffee Chocolate Chip Muffins
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These
are
insane.
Now they’re not crazily low fat or anything, but they’re not anywhere near as decadent as they taste, and the flavor combination in these muffins is absolutely exquisite. Semi-sweet chocolate, turbinado sugar, espresso powder, and a hint of orange come together to create some sort of flavor perfection that seems to come out of a dream. I mean...
7 tags
Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Oatmeal Muffins
These muffins surprised me.
The batter didn’t seem as thick as it should be, and the night I made them, I tried one and it stuck so much to the paper that it wasn’t worth the effort of prying it loose. But then I tried one the next morning for breakfast, and it was actually sort of good. It’s an oatmeal muffin, and it’s low in fat, so it’s a little more chewy...
6 tags
Mini Meyer Lemon Bundt Cakes
These are tiny sweet lemony bites from heaven. Oh my.
I didn’t even know I owned a mini bundt pan until about a month ago. I’m not 100% sure where I got it, but my money’s on it being a freebie from my friend Scratchy’s days at the Martha Stewart show. And what a way to christen them.
There’s everything I needed. Dave and the kids bought me that juicer on the...
2 tags
Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars (fail)
I’m a little sad about these.
There are so many other delicious things I could have done with those three overripe bananas. Instead I made these lame oatmeal squares. They were perfect, too, in an ideal state for baking. They mashed up beautifully.
In a separate bowl, I put together the oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. (Of course I added extra cinnamon. Too bad it...
13 tags
Carrot Spice Mini Muffins
I make these carrot spice muffins pretty regularly. They’re freakishly healthy, and I say freakishly because they are just ridiculously delicious. The spices are a perfect blend with the carrot base, the texture is moist but fluffy, the turbinado sugar on top gives them an extra bite of crunchy sweetness, and they’re full of good-for-you ingredients even beyond the cup and a half...
6 tags
Meyer Lemon Pound Cake
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I changed this recipe up a fair bit, and it paid off. Dave is normally immune to the charms of the endless stream of baked goods that makes its way through our kitchen, but this one hooked him. He’s even suggesting that there might not be any left to bring to my hungry co-workers tomorrow. I’ll take that as a compliment to the awesome power of lemon cake.
I...
6 tags
Peanut Butter Krispie Cookies
Man, these are good.
They’re peanut butter cookies with a Rice Krispie crunch, how could they not be good? Plus they started with classic cookie ingredients, butter and two kinds of sugar.
The recipe called for brown and white, but I replaced the white with cane sugar. Once those were creamed together, I added the egg, peanut butter, and vanilla, and mixed on medium speed.
The...
8 tags
Stamped Honey Cookies
I got a lovely break in my day last Thursday by running out of the office for ten minutes to meet Dad at Grand Central. He was on his way to lunch, I was working, but he was going to Toronto the next day and I had two small items that needed to get there, and he had just been to Paris and said he had some “small presents” for me. I love small presents!
We had enough time to...
7 tags
Double Chocolate Yogurt Loaf
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Let me just put this out there right away: this picture does not do this loaf justice. The how-to-use-your-new-DSL-camera class doesn’t start until April, so I’m still using the automatic setting, and I baked at night, so there was no natural light to work with. So understand that the dark blob you see before you is not representative of the joy that lay within it.
...
7 tags
Blood Orange Muffins
I had my eye on this recipe for a few weeks before I got a chance to try it. I’d picked up a bag of blood oranges at Trader Joe’s and I knew there had to be a good recipe out there.
Look at them!
The recipe called for an entire cup of juice and I had to do all the squeezing by hand. It took forever, as well as all eight of the oranges in the bag. When I was done, the kitchen...
February 2013
16 posts
6 tags
Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
I’m still not quite sure about these. The flavor is there, a strong lemon taste with the special twang Meyer lemons bring, with the right amount of sweetness to balance it out. But the texture feels off to me. It’s a little too cooked on the bottom, and a little too chewy on the inside. They’re still cooling though, so I’ll have some patience and give them another...
8 tags
Chai Spiced Snickerdoodles
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There were so many alluring aspects to this recipe that I just had to give it a try. I’d been to yoga, Juliet & I had already gotten haircuts, the rain was steady, and all signs pointed to cookies. We already love snickerdoodles around here (except for that first time I tried to make some a few years ago, when something went terribly wrong with the flavor and they had...
7 tags
Peanut Butter Bran Muffins
I never would have thought to mix peanut butter and bran, but I am in love with these muffins. I also love that they come via a blog called The Teenage Taste, written by a junior in high school. It’s a simple recipe, not particularly low in WW points (coming in at 5 because of the peanut butter) but the ingredients are healthy and these muffins are worth it.
They were easy enough to...
11 tags
Meyer Lemon Spice Bread
I confess I find the name of this bread somewhat misleading. It’s not really about the lemons; this bread is all about the spice. A little too much spice, I think, which is a very big statement coming from this particular spice lover.
That said, I might take another crack at this, because I love the idea of it, the texture’s just right, soft and fluffy, and a few small changes...
6 tags
Meyer Lemon Madeleine Cookies
I made madeleines! I didn’t know I could do that. But I can. And boy are they tasty.
Dave’s parents gave me a madeleine pan for Christmas, so today it got its moment in the sun along with some Meyer lemons fresh from the produce shelves at Trader Joe’s.
This is not one of those low fat, cut-back-on-butter recipes. In fact, it started with this:
I melted two sticks of...
7 tags
Cinnamon-Carrot Muffins
First of all, don’t make these.
My friend Bridget likes them, and she has graciously volunteered to eat them, but I don’t understand why, because I don’t get any flavor out of them whatsoever. I added spices, there’s sugar in there, two cups of carrots, and I can’t fathom why they don’t taste like anything, but to me, there’s nothing but texture.
...
6 tags
Oatmeal Tea Bread II
It’s a bit of an odd concoction, but I love it. It’s a hearty, oaty bread, with a lot of sweetness, so it fills you up and feels healthy but dessert-ish at the same time. It’s an odd combination, though, and this is one of the few times that I’m eating more of it than anyone else.
It started with oats, pure and simple.
Well, actually, now that I think about it, it...
8 tags
Quick and Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies with Glaze and...
Time for Valentine’s Day cookies.
I’ve used the same recipe for sugar cookies for the past year or so, but the last time I made it we had a lot of trouble rolling out the dough, plus it makes about 5 bajillion cookies more than we need. I poked around the web for something simpler, and there it was: Quick and Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies, no chilling of dough required.
I assembled...
11 tags
Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Bread
Definitely make this. Perfect texture, deep, tangy lemon flavor with just the right amount of sweetness, and it’s not even bad for you? A win all around,
And I like recipes that get very specific about when to put in which ingredients, and what to do after that, and how slowly or quickly to do it. It means someone has put some thought into it, and chances are, you’ll get better...
9 tags
Wholesome Oat Muffins
Get aboard the muffin transport! You won’t regret it.
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I should have made these muffins instead of last night’s disasters, but we have them now, so the muffin balance has been restored. These are delicious and the recipe seems to lend itself to adding different spices, sugars, or bonus ingredients.
The process began with oats and buttermilk.
It looked like a...
5 tags
Terrible Tea Muffins
These were so terrible that I threw the whole batch out after one bite. Honestly, it’s just an awful recipe. I’m not going to link to it because that would just be mean, but I am floored by how many positive comments were posted the page where I found it. (There were some negative ones too, which I should have heeded.)
It all started out well enough. It’s the first recipe...
4 tags
Banana Nutella Muffins -- an original
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I had two overripe bananas, a jar of Nutella, some peanut butter, and an urge to combine them all. I combed Pinterest and Google for recipes. I compared. I contrasted. And then I realized that I didn’t need a NEW recipe, I could just adapt my own banana muffins recipe. It’s the first recipe I ever could really call an original, so why not play with it and add some...
