strawberry banana muffin

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

I'd planned on posting this recipe sooner than now (how soon is now?) but after all the lovin' I got from Cakespy's loyal readers my head swelled up so big I couldn't get out of bed for a week. Tony and Teno have been nursing me back to health, bringing me lattes and pancakes whenever I ring the bell on the nightstand and I'm happy to say the girth of my ass can now support the size of my noggin.
Perhaps that was all a lie, but this isn't- these are muffins that will convert muffin-haters all over the world. I was one of you. I saw no reason to eat a bad cupcake without frosting. I tried and tried to make muffins for breakfast to avoid my usual bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios but always found myself bored back to sleep by their plainess. Add all the chocolate chips you want, muffins are still generally quite dull.
And then there's Maude. I think it's the brown sugar. No, I know it's the brown sugar that makes all the difference in these muffins. Even the occasional bite sans berries or banana is sweet and cakey. I think you'll like them, and if you don't, try frosting them. (^_-)

For the muffins you will need:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp vanill aextract
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1 cup strawberries*, chopped
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granola**
* or blueberries, you could also use frozen
** I used Bear Naked with dried berries in it, I like the crunch on top, but you can omit this

Then you:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your muffin pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and banana. Add the melted butter and combine.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gently stir in berries to prevent them from sinking in your muffins. Add the wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Fill the cups 2/3 full and top with granola. Bake 20-25 minutes, cool on wire rack.

For vegan muffins, use your favorite butter substitute, I like Earth Balance and use 1/2 cup soy yogurt in place of the eggs. These will be very moist, but bake them enough and let them cool all the way before you handle them and you're straight.

Check back later tonight for details on how to enter my super sweet Rasslin' Bake Off!

To this day the blog entry where I just mention mac & cheese cupcakes gets a ton of hits from sites that have linked to it in their "ewwwwww" files. As long as it never ends up on Cake Wrecks I'm fine with being the grossest baker on the Internet. An thanks to Jenn for the intro to Cake Wrecks, maybe the funniest blog I've seen in a long time. So click the magazine page to see the recipes.

My Flickr friends might have seen the book I made in my photography class. I want to give it away in some kind of contest because it seems weird to have a book with pictures of myself in it. Maybe I should have a contest to see who has the best contest idea.

It's been a while since I posted so I want to say congrats to Melisser on her success with Sugar Beat Sweets, way to go Michelle for a beautiful cake on Food Network's Cake Challenge last week end and high five to Phil for becoming the WWE World Heavyweight Champ! Seriously, why are my friends so rad? Oh, and happy birthday to Shannon and Barb. Also hello to Mike Edison. Enjoy your marshmallows, sir.

Everyone check out Cakespy this Sunday for a super special surprise!

Sugar-Free Apple Oatmeal Muffins

1 and 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. oatmeal

2 tsp baking powder

3 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp soda

2 eggs

1/4 c. honey

1/2 c. milk

2. c. diced apples or raisins

1/2 c. milk

1 and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. oil (or applesauce as a healthy substitute!)

Bake in muffin tins at 350 until edges brown and toothpick comes out clean

(I use mini muffin tins because these are very dense!)

vegan very lemon poppy seed muffins

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

So I graduated from Columbia on the 17th but I'm finishing my last eight credits (as well as holding down an internship at Time Out Chicago's Eating and Drinking guide- woot) starting tomorrow. I'm taking nutrition (I'm hoping to learn that eating cake and ice cream all day is, in fact nutritious,) photography and PR writing. I want to be really awesome at PR writing because French Pastry School has a marketing department and I like French pastries. Well no, I'm hoping to be awesome at my internship and then Time Out will be like- yeah, you should totally have a column about cake and ice cream in Chicago, here's a million dollars. But if that doesn't pan out I will write the shit out of some press releases for sexy French pastry chefs.
Oh, well where I was going with this bit about school is that my first class starts at 8:30am. No big deal, Teno's up at 6am most mornings, but by 8 I'm already thinking about lunch because I have crazy metabolism that makes my internal temperature 1.5 degrees hotter than everyone else and also forces me to eat about 6 meals a day. (Yikes, I don't go to school for a week and all of the sudden I'm the mayor of Run-onville.) So I'm packing the most giant, hilarious lunch in the world including but not limited to a Tofurkey and Smart Bacon sandwich, pretzels, carrots and hummus and these yummy vegan lemony lemon poppy seed muffins. I will probably also pack some sort of chocolate and a bottle of water.
The other day I bought a bunch of organic limes and lemons and spent about 45 minutes juicing and zesting them all. I always want to make really citrusy muffins and scones but I hate going to the gross produce market by my house so I thought ahead this time. We had Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits from Veganomicon for dinner, and that shit took me ALL day to make so I was very happy to only spend five minutes throwing these together. They will sustain my life for approximately 30 minutes tomorrow, but whatever. I froze half the batter in cupcake liners so I can make more next week when I have class again.
This recipe is based on the one in Vegan with a Vengeance, but I've found that citrus-based recipes are never as lemony or limey or grapefruity as I had my heart set on, so I got all Emeril and kicked it up a notch. And that is the only time I will ever compare myself to someone so sweaty and obnoxious.
To make these muffins you will need:

• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup soy milk
• 6 oz. lemon flavored soy yogurt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lemon oil
• 2 Tbs finely grated lemon zest
• 1 Tbs poppy seeds

And if you'd like to make them really pucker-ific, you'll also need:

• 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Then you:
Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees and spray your muffin pan with non-stick spray. You could also use cupcake papers, but those make muffins a little too soggy in my snotty opinion.
Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, soy milk, yogurt, vanilla, and lemon oil. Stir the zest into the wet ingredients.
Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, adding the poppy seeds half way through mixing. This is a sticky, lumpy batter. be OK with that. don't try to make it smooth, just mix it til it's mixed and step away. Unless you like to eat rocks, then by all means, beat it tl it's smooth.
Fill each muffin cup, I did it all the way because these don't rise all that much. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Then you can either eat one right out of the pan like I did, and then say "ss haa," which means "it's hot" in Mouth-full-of-food-ese. Or you can whisk the powdered sugar and lemon juice in small bowl until smooth and spoon the lemon glaze over the warm muffins.

This is totally unrelated, but I also made these Sex in the City cupcake toppers for my friend Mandi and since I've never even seen the show I have no use for them aside from making her happy. So I figured I'd post them here for all you cougars. Just download the file, print it on cardstock, trim them and stick them in your dried up old, alcoholic cupcakes. Mwwaaaa ha ha ha!
You're welcome.

Thank you, Youth of Today. And this concludes my persuasive paper on why Youth of Today is the best music to bake- or practice yoga to- ever. Reading it on a screen might not convey the energy, but download it on iTunes and I promise you will have muffins in the oven and a near-perfect down dog in no time.

So I did my yoga final yesterday, I'm taking the class for credit at school, yoga doesn't normally have a "final." I knew I wanted to bake because I feel very "zen" in the kitchen. I also like to share what I made with other people, and that seemed kinda "yoga-y." I had no idea how to explain this to my class, though, so I asked Marylin over at Cupcakes and Yoga and she, awesomely, translated my positive hardcore-meets-baking into something a yoga class could wrap their heads around.

Marilyn told me that what I was describing were a few of the Eight Limbs of Raja Yoga. The first two limbs are Yama & Niyama. Yama focuses on ethical principles, or how we treat others. Niyama focuses on observing our behaviors or, how we treat ourselves.
She said one of the things we do when practicing Yama is Ahimsa, which means to not harm living things. I tend to make vegan, or animal-free, which is a way of practicing Ahimsa. For this class in particular I made vegan carrot raisin and vegan mocha chip muffins.
Part of practicing Niyama is observing what makes us content, or Santosha. When I bake, it makes me happy- and in turn, I make other people happy by sharing food and recipes. Therefore, Ahimsa + Santosha = Deliciousness

So thank you for your help, Marylin and thanks for listening to me, yoga class.

Here are the recipes from Vegan with a Vengance as promised.

Vegan Carrot Raisin Muffins

You'll need:

• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup rise or soy milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated carrot

Then you:

Preheat the oven to 400 and either line a pan with paper liners or grease the pan with oil. Soak the raisins in a bowl of hot water to plump them up. Sift all of the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Create a well in the center and add the milk, oil and vanilla. Stir with a wooden spoon just until mixed, fold in the carrots. Drain the water from the raisins and fold those in too. Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full and bake 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. *I thought these were a bit bland, you might want to experiment by adding more spices.*

Vegan Mocha Chip Cupcakes

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 3 Tbs soy yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Then you:

Preheat the oven to 375 and either line pan with paper or grease the cups. Sift all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl, stir in the instant coffee. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir unti mixed. The batter will be lumpy, and that's OK. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full and bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Namaste!

Banana Crunch Muffin

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

This is an Ina Garten recipe, so it makes a ton of muffins. For the original measurements click here. What follows is a conversion to make one dozen muffins.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 extra large egg
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs whole milk
• 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 bananas)
• 1/2 cup medium-diced ripe bananas (1 banana)
• 1/2 cup small-diced walnuts
• 1/2cup granola
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• Dried banana chips, granola, or shredded coconut, optional

Then you:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line muffin cups with paper liners or grease them. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the melted butter and blend. Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla, and mashed bananas, and add them to the flour-and-butter mixture. Scrape the bowl and blend well. Don't overmix.

Fold the diced bananas, walnuts, granola, and coconut into the batter. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Top each muffin with dried banana chips, granola, or coconut, if desired. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from the pan, and serve.

Hey everyone:)

So, over where I am at it is definitely a baking day. It is about 30 degrees outside right now. This morning is my family's big breakfast so my grandma will be making her really good biscuits and gravy which should be quite tasty. Other than that we are just going to hang around and I think I am going to make stuffed pizza. Although I think later my sister wants me to play badminton with her....that should be a pretty sight. Anyways, just the other day I made these muffins and that rich sour cream with, with the sweet blueberries, and tart raspberries made the most harmonious muffins. I loved it! The best part about these muffins are that they taste like two different muffins if you have them cold or warm.

Here's the recipe and it's actually really simple (always a plus if you are in a hurry):

"Rich, Sweet, and Tart Berry Cream Muffins"*

Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 and ½ cups frozen blueberries not thawed, 1 and ½ cups raspberries not thawed, 4 eggs slightly beaten, 1 tsp salt, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup Splenda, 16 oz sour cream, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 cup of vegetable oil.

1) In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, Splenda, baking soda, baking powder, and salt with a wooden spoon. Add blueberries and raspberries, and mix gently. In a medium sized bowl, mix the eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla on medium speed until mixed well. Stir into dry mixture with a wooden spoon, just until moistened..

2) Spray muffin pan with butter flavored cooking spray and fill them two-thirds full with the batter. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire racks.

3) Enjoy the symphony of tastes.

*Base of recipe was from Taste of Home and then I molded it from there.

Fruit Muffin Crumble Topping Recipe (For 12 muffins)

Ingredients
3 tbsp of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup packed brown sugar (I prefer slightly course brown sugar)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Directions
1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together and mix it with your finger tips (as it is the coolest part of your hands and it will prevent the butter from melting too quickly). Mix till a crumble consistency is achieved.
2. Sprinkle over un-baked muffin, before placing muffins into the oven.
3. Enjoy a delicious muffin(s) with tea!

I also mentioned that I had my fair share of problems while baking muffins. My muffins would sometimes turn out like rocks and have large holes in them. I did the following to solve this.

• I added less egg.
• I added less liquids.
• I avoid over-mixing my muffins by mixing the wet & dry ingredients with my hands, instead of a wooden spoon or electric mixer.

However, somehow my banana muffins always don't turn out as well as I would like them to. They aren't that moist. Any tips?

Yesterday I watched Fulci's Zombi 2 for oh...the 500th time? But this time I watched it as a student (in my zombie class) and paid more attention to the cinematic elements and cultural context of the film. I also paid attention to the eye-splinter scene because it's awesome. To go along with the viewing, we read a passage from Wade Davis' The Serpent and the Rainbow. Specifically, the passage in which Davis watches the zombi poison being made. The part where they crush the dead girl's skull and grind it into dust gave me a craving for skull-shaped baked goods. Inspired by Fulci's classic, putrid, rotting zombie faces I thought green apples would be a fun addition. I pictured them poking out of the skulls like maggots. Well, that didn't happen, and honestly, these muffins are so-so. I think I took it all too far in trying to make them low-fat as well. They taste remotely like apples, but more so like a plain muffin. Just the fact that plain muffins exist sends shivers down my spine. Not one to let a bad recipe get me down, I've decided to add "failures" to my categories. Now you can revel in my little disappointments at your convenience.
Should you want to make these muffins for your local voodoo priestess, I'll give you the recipe now. I think a dab of tetrotoxin would really make these pop.
Don't really poison people with muffins. That's rude.

You will need:

• 1 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cups + 2 Tbs sugar
• 1 & 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup grated apple, whatever kind you like
• 4 oz low fat vanilla yogurt
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Then you:

Heat oven to 350º F. Grease 3-inch muffin pan cups or line with paper liners. In large bowl, combine flour, 3/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt, orange zest, and nutmeg. With pastry blender or fork, cut in 6 Tbs butter until mixture is crumbly.

In medium bowl combine apple, yogurt, and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring until just combined. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake 20 to 25 minutes or until centers spring back when gently pressed.

Cool muffins in pan 5 minutes; remove from pan and cool until able to handle. Meanwhile, melt remaining butter. In small bowl, combine remaining 2 Tbs sugar and the cinnamon. To serve. brush tops of muffins with butter and roll top in cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Donut Muffin

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

I read about donut muffins like, three times this week on all different foodie blogs. Now, I like muffins and I love donuts so I really couldn't see anything not being awesome about these. And guess what... donut muffins are fuckin' awesome. You have to eat them warm, so either make them when you're insanely hungry or make them for guests (unless of course your family can eat 12 warm muffins, in which case I tip my hat to you, sir.)

For the muffins you will need:

• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup milk

For the topping you will need:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Then you:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan, don't use paper liners because you're going to want to dump these out hot and get started coating them in sugar.
Then, cream the oil, 1/2 cup sugar, and egg in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the creamed mixture, making three additions of flour mix and two of milk. Spoon the batter into the greased muffin tin, about 1/2 full and bake for 20 minutes. Immediately remove muffins from pan when done and roll (or dip) in melted butter, then roll in cinnamon and sugar.
Eat 'em warm and say things like, "Mmm, donut muffins."

I loves chocolate hence my first attempt on baking is Chocolate Muffins.  The first time turns out to be too hard after the muffins turn cold.  Muffins is always best eaten when it is hot, fresh from the oven.  Overnight muffins always don't taste as good but i have tried fantastic muffins that bought from stalls and it still taste soft even after a night. Mmmm.... i guess that is their secret recipes. I am still finding a way to figure out.

Chocolate Chips Muffins ( Make about 6)

1) 1 Cup of Flour

2) 1/2 cup of sugar

3) 1/2 cup of Milk

4) 1/2 teaspoon of salt

5) 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

6) 1/4 cup of butter

7) 1 egg

8) 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

9) 1 1/2 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

10) 1/4 cup of choc chips.

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 190 degree c 

2) Sieve flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together.

3) Cream butter & sugar until smooth.  Beat in vanilla and eggs one at a time.

4) Stir in the combined flour into (3)

5) Mix chocolate chips into the sugar mixture until combined.

6) Lay the muffin cups into the muffin tray and fill it until 3/4 full.  (You may sprinkle more choc chips on the top if you love more choc chips)

7) Bake for 20-25 mins.  Use a toothpick and poke the centre until it come out clean. 

blueberry muffins

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!
I never really post muffin recipes, even though I bake them pretty often because they aren't as sweet and cute as cupcakes or cookies. But they are tasty, and really if you think about it, they're cupcakes that you're allowed to eat in the morning without anyone saying to you, "Are you seriously going to eat a cupcake for breakfast?" My mom passed this recipe on to me in hopes of changing my opinion of Ina Garten. I still think she's pretty dull to watch, but her recipes are quite amazing. These are from Barefoot Contessa Family Style; they're light, fluffy and Teno-approved.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 8 ounces (about 1 cup) sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 half-pints fresh blueberries (2 cups, although I used 3 cups)

Then you:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place liners in muffin pans.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed. Fold in the blueberries with a spatula and be sure the batter is completely mixed.

Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pans, filling each cup just over the top, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean.

Check out my Etsy shop for shirts and stuff!

Anyway, to make these bad muffins you'll need:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp dried orange zest (or 1 tsp fresh grated)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 & 1/3 cup frozen berries
• 1 tsp vanilla

Then you:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin pans.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and create a well in the center.
3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the wet ingredients (not the berries.)
4. Mix the wet into the dry just until they're combined.
5. Then fold in the berries.
6. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake 15-20 minutes.

These might be better with something going on upstairs- like some course sugar sprinkled on before baking or even a strudel topping. But they were for a baby, so I didn't go nuts on the sugar.