Cinnamon Streusel Muffins

Have I told you about the grocery stores out here?  They are a little funny.  They don't carry all of your typical (or at least what I would consider typical) store items.  Like cook and serve tortillas.  Our store used to carry them and has since stopped.  Boo.  Or during canning season they didn't have dry pectin.  One week they weren't selling red peppers.  I discovered a new grocery store woe this week.  They don't carry my favorite kind of blueberry muffin mix.  They carry the same brand in the cinnamon streusel and lemon poppyseed, but no blueberry.  Come on.  Blueberry has got to be more popular than both of those flavors.  However, that didn't stop me from debating buying a box of cinnamon streusel.  Since I'm joining my sister-in-law on a spending fast, I decided to pass them by.

Since then I haven't been able to get them out of my head.  I've had seriously bad cravings for cinnamon streusel. I haven't had a cinnamon streusel muffin in years!  Probably since childhood.  I blame The Scoot (Scooter, Scootie, or baby (no relation to baby's real name, but just his nickname for now.))

I broke down this morning and found a few recipes for cinnamon streusel muffins.  I wasn't completely happy with either recipe (found here and here), so I combined the two.  This is what I ended up with.

Cinnamon Streusel Muffins

Batter:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas. cinnamon
1/2 teas. salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
6 tablespoons melted butter

Filling:
1 1/2 tablespoons softened butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup flour

2 tablespoons softened butter

1. Preheat oven to 375.  Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. For batter, mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl.  In another bowl combine the wet ingredients.  Combine wet and dry together.  Set aside.
3. For filling, mix until combined into a paste.  Set aside.
4. For topping, combine dry ingredients.  Add butter and cut into dry ingredients.  Mix until crumbly.
5. Starting with batter, put in half a scoop of batter into each muffin cup.  Add a teaspoon of filling to each.  Top with another half a scoop of batter.  Using a tooth pick, swirl the filling into the batter (but not too much.)  Sprinkle streusel topping and press lightly into muffin.
6. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until golden brown.

This recipe made 15 muffins for me.  Next time I make these I am going to try adding more milk to the batter since it seemed a little thick.  Also, it seems like there is a lot of butter in these so I will try adjusting the amount of butter in them.  However, they were really, really good just the way they are.

Fall Baking

I've been in a baking mood.  I'm not sure if it's the change into fall or that Halloween is here, but I've felt like being in my kitchen.  Things I've baked within the last couple of weeks include:

Halloween Sugar Cookies 

(Brad and Aaron did the icing while I did the decorating.  Good job boys!)

Super Apple Pie

(recipe can be found here)

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

(recipe can be found here)

Yummy!  I think this is my new favorite pumpkin recipe.  It even used whole wheat flour.  Give them a try.

On another note, it's Halloween and we have had zero trick-or-treaters.  We've had awful weather.  Rain + wind + hail + lightning x Halloween = 1 very full bowl of Halloween candy.  After all these treats, I'm feeling very guilty about my lack of running the past few weeks.  I'm going to have to rededicate myself with the holidays coming up.  There's always next week.  Now where is that last slice of pie?

Happy Valentine's Day!

cBrad and I had a great Valentine's Day.  Brad got me these beautiful roses.  He had placed them in a few different vases so I could see them throughout the house.

I made a few valentine's decorations.  The globes weren't hard to make, just time consuming.  You can find the tutorial here.  The hanging heart was an idea from Martha Stewart that was super easy.  It can be found here.  (Side note: Can you guess which picture Brad took and the ones I took?  I'll give you a hint, mine are the ones with terrible lighting and less artistic flair.)

I tried something new for Valentine's dinner.  I attempted homemade ravioli with a lemon basil sauce.  Yumm.  I don't really have a recipe for it since I kind of went off what I thought would work.  The filling in the ravioli was ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan while the sauce was a reduction of cream, butter, lemon juice, basil, and some salt and pepper.  Maybe because there was enough fat in it to make anything taste good, but I think my creativity was actually better than straight browned butter sauces I read about in my cookbooks.

I also made Brad homemade truffles, carmels, and turtles for Valentine's.  I made them secretly while Brad was in class or at his DAT prep course.  He was completely surprised when I brought them out.

The truffles weren't actually that hard to make.  I had the most difficulty while dipping the chocolate, but that was mostly because I couldn't keep the chocolate at a good temperature.  Here's the recipe for them.

Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate (divided)
3 oz milk chocolate
2 tbsp butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 teas vanilla

Chop the 9 oz of semi-sweet chocolate and all of the milk chocolate finely and put inside a glass bowl.  Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat until bubble form around the edge.  Remove from the heat and add a fourth of the chocolate.  Whisk until smooth.  Pour the cream mixture over the remaining chocolate in the bowl and let sit until chocolate melts (about 30 seconds).  Beat with a whisk until all the lumps disappear and the ganache is smooth (you can also use an immersion blender).  Stir in butter until smooth and then add the vanilla.

Line a deep plate or shallow bowl with plastic wrap leaving overhang on one side.  Pour ganache into the plate/bowl and spread evenly.  Fold the plastic wrap over the ganache, pressing directly onto the surface.  Let cool at room temperature at least 4 hours or overnight.

Once ganache has set, use a small cookie scoop or two teaspoons to scoop small mounds of the ganache onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Put in refrigerator for about 15 minutes or until firm enough to roll.  Then place the chocolate mounds between both palms, squeezing slightly and roll into balls.  Refrigerate until ready to coat.

Using the remaining 3 oz of chocolate (you may need more depending on how thick of a shell you want) melt in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted.  Once melted, let the chocolate cool a little bit so the ganache doesn't melt too much when dipped.  One at a time, dip each truffle in the chocolate with a two-prong fork (a plastic fork with the middle tines broken off works great),  lift the truffle and let excess chocolate drip off.  You can let them dry as is or roll them in cocoa powder, coconut or nuts.


I'm sure from this weekend alone I have gained weight from eating chocolate truffles and fattening ravioli cream sauces, but it's back to lighter meals from now on.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Christmas Spritz Cookies

Brad got a cookie gun for Christmas so we decided to make some Spritz.  We called Grandma Packer for her recipe.  Turns out that it is her mother's, Great-Grandma Scofield's Spritz Cookie recipe.  Yummy.

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp almond flavoring

2 1/4 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

food coloring

colored sugar crystals

Mix butter and sugar well.  Add egg & flavoring.  Mix in dry ingredients.  Dough will be kind of stiff.  Can add food coloring.  Put in gun and pump out shapes.  Can sprinkle colored sugar.  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.  Take out before brown as they will continue to bake on the pan.

(As a side note, we did not have almond extract.  We substituted vanilla, but it would have been better with almond.)

Marshmallow Play Dough

I made these cute ghosties and pumpkin from a recipe I got from an enrichment on candy making. Microwave marshmallows with a little bit of water and then mix into a mound of powdered sugar until it's a stiff dough. Then you play with it and form whatever you want. The ghosts are actually standing up on pretzel rod with some of the dough on each end. For the pumpkin I kneaded some food coloring into the dough. Super easy.

As American as. . .

I tried making fresh apply pie on Sunday. It turned out pretty good for being my first time, however, there were things that could have gone better. Like the filling was kind of runny and the apples weren't quite done. The recipe I used was from a cookbook that we received for our wedding and it's been a pretty good cookbook. But I think I'll try a different recipe next time. Anyone have a good one or any tips?