Take a Megabite

Jam-Filled Muffins

These muffins are low-fat, I guess. But mostly they are necessary. They are necessary when you’re starving and it’s almost 8 and there is no dinner in the oven. Then you’ll need one of these muffins. You won’t be able to fight it. It’s either this or the tortilla chip crumbs that are in the bag on top of the fridge.

What? You don’t eat muffins when you are hungry at 8pm? Why not?

These muffins are really good. I think it has to do with the fact that they are a muffin and I know it has to do with the fact that strawberry jam is darn superb.

Jam-Filled Muffins
Recipe from Cooking Light via Crepes of Wrath + Think Inside the Icebox

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1/4 t salt
• 2/3 cup vanilla fat-free yogurt
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 3 T milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup jam (I used strawberry since it’s my most favorite.)

topping -

• 1 T sugar + 1/2 t ground cinnamon = cinnamon sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Place 12 paper liners in muffin cups.
2. In a medium bowl whisk together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt). In another bowl whisk together the yogurt, butter, milk and egg. (I used greek yogurt because it’s what I had and had to add another tablespoon of milk. So if you use a thick yogurt, you might need to do that too!) Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the yogurt mixture in. Stir just until combined.
3. Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into each muffin cup. Top each with a teaspoon of jam. Top with remaining batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean when inserted in the center of a muffin. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack. Eat them!

I know. The jam should be in the middle. What was this muffin trying to prove?

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Breakfast is really important to me. It’s right up there with black coffee and dessert. So I guess it goes to show that when there’s chocolate involved in a muffin, I’ll be down. Down all the way.

These guys have skills. They will make your early morning feel not so early and they’ll make your late morning feel less lazy. So needless to say, you should make these.

And they’re so cute you might want to hug one before you eat it, but be careful!

Chocolate Chip Muffins
Recipe from McCormick via Bake or Break

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted + slightly cooled
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chocolate coasley chopped
• turbinado sugar for sprinkling, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Lightly grease or line 12 regular sized muffin cups or 36 mini muffin cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Stir in melted butter, milk and vanilla. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips or chunks. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar if you’re feeling sparkly.
4. Bake regular sized muffins for 20-22 minutes and minis for 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Serve warm.

Just a mini chocolate chip muffin army … intimidating you with chocolate.

Bran Muffins

Attention RSS subscribers! Please resubscribe! My site moved from one host to another this weekend and I’d hate for you to miss out on new posts. So, please resubscribe. I’d really miss you.

Ok. On to muffins.

I’ve learned a few things this weekend besides the fact that that you guys should totally resubscribe to my blog because of my host change. One being, when the bottom of a recipe from my mom says “makes oodles and lots of muffins” she means it. I put the halved recipe below; I made the full recipe at home. It might’ve barely fit in the biggest bowl I own. Good thing this batter is hip and snazzy and can be refrigerated over a few days and baked at your own discretion.

Another thing I learned this weekend is that spiders like to hide behind my desk and jump out of cupboards at me. Sometimes all you can do is grab your soap dispenser and show them whats up. I feel gross about my soap dispenser being a spider killer, but mostly I feel gross about having two spider encounters in one day.

I don’t feel gross about these muffins though. These muffins remind me of being a little girl and eating a bran muffin made in a mini pie tin just for me. These are good and the edges are crispy right out of the oven. So why not make them?

Bran Muffin {makes 2 dozen-ish, probably more}
Recipe from my mum, who bakes these in a pie pan

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bran flakes, divided
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. In a large bowl, mix 1 cup of your bran flake cereal into 1 cup of boiling water. Add butter, stirring until the butter has melted. Stir in sugar, eggs and buttermilk.
2. In another bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir into bran mixture. Stir in remaining 2 cups of bran flakes.
3. Spray muffin pans with cooking spray or coat with butter. Fill each cup about 3/4 full and bake for 10-15 minutes! Test for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of a few muffins. When it comes out clean, you’re all set! Also! if you don’t feel like making all the muffins at once, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until time to bake.

Note: you can also bake this batter in a pie pan like my mom does. Bake for about 25-30 minutes if you do that. Cut into wedges!

The top’s missing because I ate it.
The bottom had 2 seconds to be a hottie for this photo before I ate that too.

Mocha Muffins

Sometimes I get impatient when I have to wait until Tuesday to watch Law and Order and sometimes I get impatient eating dinner when there’s dessert. I usually get impatient about breakfast as I’m going to bed and I was really impatient about trying one of these muffins right out of the oven.

I ran out of kosher salt right after I ran out of patience … I might have used sea salt in these out of desperation. I wouldn’t recommend it though. Sea salt grains are just too big for baking. Now I know.

Despite the sea salt, these guys are tasty in that chocolate + coffee way and they sparkle in the turbinado sugar + magic way.

Mocha Muffins
Recipe from Baking Bites

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup + 2 T sugar
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 T cocoa powder
• 1 T instant espresso or coffee (I used coffee.)
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 milk
• 1 t pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (milk or semisweet)
• turbinado sugar for sprinkling and sparkling (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a 12 up muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In a microwave-safe bowl melt butter and stir in cocoa powder and instant espresso/coffee. Allow to cool for a couple minutes. In a 2 cup measuring cup whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla. Add both the butter mixture and milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir until combined. The batter will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Divide batter between the 12 cups. It’ll feel like too much batter, but don’t worry, they will be pretty and not touching or anything.
5. Bake for 19-22 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of a central muffin comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack so you don’t burn your mouth on the melty chocolatey goodness.

Just some hip Mocha Muffins coolin’ out bein’ cool.

Lemon-Scented Olive Oil Mini Muffins

Don’t bother biting these guys in half. Eat them in one bite like sushi!

And then eat at least one more, ok?

These little lemony delights use olive oil instead of butter and are flavored with real fruit! So there you go!

Lemon-Scented Olive Oil Mini Muffins
Recipe from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

muffins -

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• scant 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1 T lemon zest
• 2 T extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 T skim milk
• 2 t fresh lemon juice
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white

glaze -

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• a pinch of lemon zest
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• strawberries for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray 2 (dozen) mini muffin pans with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Make a well in the center.
3. In another bowl whisk together the sour cream, lemon zest, olive oil, milk, lemon juice, egg and egg white until mixed completely. Pour into the well in the dry ingredients stir just until moistened.
4. Divide batter 1 teaspoon at at time into the prepared muffin tins (mine made about 23 mini muffins). Bake for 10 minutes or until cakes spring back lightly when touched. Remove from pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.
5. Make glaze. Whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon zest and drizzle juice until smooth. (You might not need all the juice. Just mix until it’s the consistency you want.) Dunk the tops of each mini muffin into the glaze and set aside until glaze sets. Top each with a strawberry sliver.

Spinach and Cheese Muffins

I always want to put an “e” at the end of spinach. I don’t know why.
I’ve never made savory muffins before. I don’t know why.

But I do know why I love these guys. Spinach + cheese = win win.

I made these to go with delicious Broccoli + Arugula Soup,  that Joy the Baker posted a couple days ago. They were both delicious and went together like total BFFs.

Spinach and Cheese Muffins
Recipe from the hummingbird bakery cookbook

Ingredients:

• 2 T butter
• 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 4 oz. baby spinach, roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Meanwhile melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and fry the onion until cooked. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl stir together flour, baking powder, cayenne and cheese. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk and egg together, then slowly pour into the flour mixture and beat with a hand mixer until too thick to mix.
3. Stir in the onion and spinach with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed. (It will be hard to stir because this batter is much more like biscuit dough, but just do the best you can.)
4. Spoon batter into muffin tins lined with paper liners. Fill about two thirds full. (Mine made about 18.) Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the muffins on a wire rack to cool

Allspice Crumb Muffins

Brew some coffee! Melt that butter! Make these muffins, that are freckled like me!

This delicate muffin is just what my morning needed. And just to warn you, one bite and you might consider paying for Allspice to go on a vacation since it’s been doing such a good job around the house making things like these dreamy muffins.

Allspice Crumb Muffins
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan: Baking from my Home to Yours

Ingredients:

crumbs / streusel -

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 t ground allspice
• 5 T cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

muffins -

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t ground allspice
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk, room temperature
• 1/4 t pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter or spray a muffin tin (that fits 12 muffins), or line with paper liners. Place the muffin tin on a baking sheet. Set aside.
2. Make streusel. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, brown sugar and allspice. Add the bits of cold butter and toss to coat, then use your fingers to work the butter into the dry ingredients until you’ve got irregularly shaped crumbs. Set aside in the fridge until ready to use.
3. Make muffins. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking power, allspice and salt. Stir in the brown sugar, making sure there are no lumps. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, eggs, milk and vanilla extract together until well combined. Pour liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and fold together with a rubber spatula, gently but quickly. The batter will be lumpy, so don’t even worry about it.
4. Divide batter evenly between 12 muffin cups (I found that I could’ve probably made 13-14 muffins to ensure they didn’t rise up and touch when baking). Sprinkles streusel over each muffin and use your fingers to gently press the crumbs into the batter. Bake for about 20 minutes, rotating half way through bake time, or until a cake tester comes out clean and the the tops of the muffins are golden. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for at least 5 minutes before removing  and allowing to cool further on a wire rack.

Mini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Even banana chocolate chip muffins have hearts.

Mini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Recipe adapted from my Mom’s classic banana bread

Ingredients:

• 2-3 mashed over ripe bananas
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t salt
• 3 T oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips + some melted for drizzling purposes

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray mini muffin tins with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl mash bananas with potato masher until no big chunks remain. Stir in the dry ingredients until combined (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt).
3. Add oil, milk and egg and stir until combined.
4. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Fill mini muffin tins using cookie scoop or a tablespoon. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until tops are firm and a cake tester comes out clean. Loosen muffins with a paring knife and gently twist to loosen. Cool on wire racks.
6. If you’re feeling fancy go a head and melt some chocolate and fill a sandwich bag and cut a teeny corner for drizzling or heart making.

Recipe makes about 43 mini muffins or one loaf of bread. If making the bread, bake for an hour!

Raspberry Orange Mini Muffins with Pink Icing

My first favorite thing about these muffins is how the raspberries turn the icing pink and my second favorite thing is the way the raspberries are a surprise when you bite into these. The deliciousness is understood.

These are pretty much cupcakes, that I’ve decided to call a muffins for breakfast’s sake. They seem like the kind of breakfast cake that should be served with pink hot chocolate or at a tea party.

Mostly, they are a pretty muffin with freckles. What’s not to like?

Raspberry Orange Mini Muffins
Recipe adapted from Cupcakes!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 – 2 t grated orange zest
• scant 1 T poppy seeds
• 1/2 cup buttermilk*
• 1 t orange juice
• 27 raspberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 27 mini muffin tin cups with paper liners.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on a medium speed, beat the butter and sugar until smoothly blended and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until each is blended and batter looks creamy. Mix in the vanilla, orange zest and poppy seeds.
4. On a low speed, add half of the flour mixture, mixing just to incorporate it. Mix in the buttermilk to blend it. Mix in the remaining flour mixture until it is just incorporated and batter looks smooth. Stir in orange juice.
5. Fill each paper liner using a cookie scoop or about 1 teaspoon of batter. Pop one raspberry on top of each cupcake and press in lightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center and comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool before drizzling. It makes for prettier frosting, trust me.

*I was out of buttermilk so I used the following substitution:
Place 1 1/2 t lemon juice in a 1/2 cup measuring cup and fill to the top with milk.
Allow to sit for 2 minutes. Use in place of buttermilk! Thanks Joy!
(substitution found on Joy the Baker)

Raspberry + Orange = Pink Icing

Ingredients:

• 1 T butter, melted
• 1 cup powdered sugar, divided
• 2 t orange juice
• 2 raspberries mashed

Directions:

1. Stir butter and 2/3 cup powdered sugar together until it looks like large crumbs.
2. Add 2 teaspoons orange juice and mix completely. Mash two raspberries and stir into the icing.
3. Add remaining 1/3 cup powdered sugar one tablespoon at a time until slightly thicker than a glaze. Drizzle on top of the cupcakes and eat 26.

Here I am sifting like I mean it with my new flour sifter!

Sugar Donut Mini Muffins

Why does the wind always blow the opposite way than my hair is parted?
Why does Elliot think that his anger at squirrels will result in a treat?
Why buy black corduroys when you can get mustard yellow?
Why eat cereal for breakfast when you have sugar donut mini muffins?
Why wouldn’t you make these?!

These are most amazing right out of the oven, just after they are rolled in sugar.
You can really taste the nutmeg in these guys. So take a nutmegabite. You’ll be glad you did!

Sugar Donut Mini Muffins
Recipe adapted from Baking Bites

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/8 t ground nutmeg
• 1/8 t ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 t vanilla extract

PLUS:

• 2 T butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease muffin tin(s) with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. Add canola oil, milk and vanilla extract.
4. Divide batter evenly into 24 mini muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. (I used my cookie scoop)
5. Bake for 10 minutes (rotating half way through) or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. While muffins are baking, melt butter and pour remaining sugar into a small bowl. When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter. Remove from the pan by twisting gently and roll the top and sides in sugar. Cool on a wire rack and then promptly eat ten.

Makes 24 donut hole-esque mini muffins.