Chocolate Chocolate Breakfast Muffins

These simple buttermilk mini muffins are kicked up with some cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Simple and not overly sweet, these dense but tender muffins are perfect for breakfast with a strong cup of coffee and perhaps some berries. Or have one (or two) in the afternoon with a cup of tea. But they really aren't dessert-y enough to be a full on dessert!

Blueberry Muffins with Lemon Sugar

These are classic blueberry muffins with a slight twist, lemon zest in the batter and lemon sugar on top. The subtle tang of the lemon complements the sweet blueberries and the baking soda-y muffin nicely. Of course I don't like blueberries, so these weren't thrilling to me. That's okay though, I made these primarily to give away--so the fact that I didn't love them was quite helpful. And I got plenty of complements on them, so I assume that they were very nice if you like such things.

Chocolate, chocolate chip, fudge muffins

These are very good. These are rich, moist, chocolate muffins with mini chocolate chips tossed in. These are topped with a fudgy chocolate glaze. That's it. Chocolate, chocolate chip, fudge muffins.

Need I say more?

Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Quickbread

Now that I'm not living in a city, I can't alway get some of the odder ingredients I want, but good produce is easy to come by. Case in point: my nextdoor neighbor grows rhubarb and she very kindly told me that I could pick it anytime I want as she never comes close to using it all. I admit I've never actually baked with rhubarb before. I'm not sure why--probably a combination of it being hard to come by in NYC and London and the fact that, while I like rhubarb, it's not my favorite.

White Chocolate, Pumpkin, Sage, and Brown Butter Mini Muffins

The pumpkin, sage, brown butter loaf cake recipe was supposed to make 8 mini loaves. Unfortunately my mini loaf pan only makes 6 loaves. What's a girl to do with left over loaf cake batter? Make mini muffins of course!

Since I had 6 mini loaves I figured I'd have a little fun with the mini muffins and add some chocolate. Pumpkin is delicious with dark chocolate but because this batter bordered on savory (with the brown butter and sage) I thought dark chocolate--even semi-sweet--might be a bit too bitter. So I tossed in a generous helping of good quality, white chocolate chips.

Blueberry Muffins with White Chocolate Chunks

Remember the plum muffins I made a while ago? All the fruity muffins I've made since haven't managed to live up to those. They were pretty much the perfect muffin. But I love plums (and strawberries, a variation I made) and I don't like blueberries. Sophie loves blueberries and had some left from a batch that were so gorgeous I enjoyed them when they were baked in pancakes, so I figured I'd use them up before they went bad. Of course buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup are good enough to make up for blueberries--would the muffins be enough? My answer is an emphatic yes!

Plum Muffins, revisited

Remember these? They were great the last time I made them. They were great this time too! There's something about the fresh plum with the coffee cake-y muffin that is just amazing. Yum!

Chocolate Crumb Muffins

I've made this before as crumb cake and it was very good. I wanted muffins this time around so I gave it a shot and it was almost as good as the cake. I found that the crumb ratio was off (there wasn't nearly enough cinnamony, buttery goodness) and they weren't quite as moist (that could have been because I used fat free Greek yogurt instead of the full fat sour cream the recipe calls for) but they were still delicious. And don't they look lovely?

Blackberry Muffins

These are pretty straight forward. They a a simple recipe from Williams-Sonoma's Muffins cookbook that produces the expected delicious result. They are a moist (but not damp) muffin with a tender crumb. The blackberries I used were tart, but not overly so and balanced the sweetness of the muffin nicely. My only complaint is that the streusel on top was a bit on the light side, I'd add extra next time. Nothing terribly exciting here, but generally I think muffins (especially fruit ones) shouldn't be too exciting; if you make them flashy they cease to be the simple, homey, comfort food I think of them to be. That said, you don't want to be stuck in the doldrums either. Happily, the muffin, which was relatively plain and could have been a bit blah, was spruced up by the sizable pieces of fresh blackberries--in contrast to the usual small dots of blueberries--which certainly kept the muffins from being boring.

 

Maple Muffins

These were not quite as yellow in person; they were more of a warm yet pale brown.

These maple muffins are from Sarabeth's Bakery cookbook. They are dense but not overly heavy and they are sweet but not overly sugary. The maple syrup is sweet but with a complexity and deep, warm flavor that is lacking in regular sugar. They are a perfect thing to eat with a cup of tea (or apple cider) on a cold fall day. I believe this was supposed to make normal size muffins. Instead, I made a multitude of mini muffins and 3 mini loaves. I wrapped the loaves in foil, put them in a freezer ziploc bag, and froze them. I kept them about a month and just defrosted them overnight in the fridge. I took them out, let them come to room temp, unwrapped them, sliced them, and tentatively took a bite. They were just as good as the fresh muffins were a month ago. Okay, maybe they were slightly less fresh tasting, but honestly they were still very good and the difference was minor at most.

A note on maple syrup: many baking recipes call for grade B maple syrup. The grades unlike for many other foods, don't refer to how good or fresh the syrup is, instead they refer to how translucent it is. Grade B the darkest and therefore has a stronger flavor than the three subdivisions of Grade A (light, medium, and dark). It is a little strong to use on pancakes (typically Grade A light or medium amber is used for eating) but it is perfect for baking. It can be a little hard to find, so if you can't find it, use Grade A dark amber. Never ever use fake syrups (like Aunt Jemima); they are good for pancakes but bad for baking.

Carrot Muffins

These are more along the lines of zucchini bread (except with carrot, obviously, and a ton of cinnamon) than carrot cake. They were quite nice although a little too healthy seeming for my taste! The recipe is from the Williams Sonoma Muffins cookbook, which has a whole section devoted to vegetable muffins. I do think the reason this came across as too healthy is because it is a sweet muffin--their shallot muffins (which I hope to make soon) seem to be a savory muffin, which I think tends to be a better way to go if you are adding veggies to baked goods. Regardless, these were good and, while not healthy by any means, were healthier than many muffins and still satisfied my sweet tooth. All in all a success, though I don't think I'll bother with them again.

Bread Unit Exam

They really threw us a curve ball for this exam. We knew we would have to make brioche and croissant (and presumably pain au chocolat) because we prepared the dough the class prior to the exam. However, we didn't know that we would have to make another yeasted bread (of our choice) and a quickbread muffin (that we were randomly assigned.) I got cornbread for my muffin! I'm very happy about that because I love cornbread and it's quite easy to make. For my choice of yeasted bread, I picked vienois, because it was incredible and one of the simpler breads to make.

So the brioche à tête came out pretty well. Definitely tasty and even though the heads came out a little wonky, the chef said that they looked quite nice. This is especially good because about half the brioche dough (mine included) wasn't defrosted before class, so I had to wait over an hour before I could use it. The croissants were under proofed and slightly underbaked because there wasn't enough space in the proof boxes and then I ran out of time. Ah well. At least the pain au chocolat were closer--they were pretty much proofed and properly baked--and the chef said they looked nice. The cornbread came out almost perfect and oh so yummy! And the vienois was pretty close to perfect (although I didn't do the cuts on top quite deep enough.)

Overall, not a great success, but not too bad either. 

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I was really excited about these, but unfortunately they were a bit of a let down. They weren't as tart as I like and mine got taken out slightly too early--they weren't undercooked, but they weren't quite browned and crisped enough on top. Ah well, I'll have to try these again...or maybe just another recipe.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Considering I don't like banana, these were quite good. I actually didn't mind eating them, although I would have preferred less banana (I do understand that less banana defeats the purpose of making banana muffins.)  Everyone who likes bananas and tasted these said they were excellent and not too banana-y at We made muffins and then compiled our excess batter to make one large "cake," which is really more a giant quickbread. I got to take home so of both, which made me a hit with my mom and pops, who both whine that I won't make them banana bread.

Blueberry Muffins

I actually made these before for the Great Blueberry Muffin Showdown. These actually came out a little better, perhaps because we were running short on blueberries so the chef told us to use about 1/3 less than the recipe called for. (In case you were wondering why I think it is good that there weren't as many blueberries in the blueberry muffins, I should mention that I don't like blueberries very much.) Plus the berries we did use were quite tart, so I actually didn't mind them in the relatively small quantity.

I realize this is silly, but we got to use those tall brown muffin papers that look so café-ish. They are so pretty and you don't need to use a muffin tin (which are such a pain to clean)--so I was very happy!

Fruitcake Muffins

Well I never thought I'd say this, but I like fruitcake! Well, I like this fruitcake. This isn't like the fruitcake that you get during the holidays, shove in the back of the cabinets, and six months later find it and realize it's still not gone bad. This is more like a muffin packed with dried fruit for flavor. And we used wonderful dried fruits--including candied orange peel, yum!

Chocolate Coffee Cake

      

This is a recipe from a Williams Sonoma cookbook called Muffins. My mom says that this cookbook, since it is entitled Muffins, should only have muffin recipes.  However, to her dismay, it also has coffee cake and quick bread recipes.  This actually makes perfect sense; they are to muffins as cakes are to cupcakes.  In other words they are like giant muffins.  Quick breads and coffee cakes are not terribly similar, but they are both like different types of muffin recipes.  The quick breads are like the less rich muffins, such as zucchini muffins.  The coffee cakes are along the lines of more desserty, caky muffins.  They are made with similar batters and have similar crumble toppings.

This particular coffee cake is a really nice, moist, flavorful chocolate sour cream cake with a buttery brown sugar and chocolate chip crumble. The crumb is moist and relatively fine.  It has a lovely tanginess from the sour cream and, while clearly sweet, is not overly sweet because the chocolate flavor comes from unsweetened cocoa powder.  Yum!

P.S. I actually made this cake quite a while ago, well before I had this blog.  I'm posting it today because I am planning on making coffee cake tomorrow, so it seemed timely.

Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins

    

Ages ago I promised I'd make a nectarine version of Martha Stewart's Plum Coffee Cake Muffins.  Well I didn't.  But I did decide to make a strawberry version.  They were good!

I think I like the plum version slightly more, because the plums were more flavorful (though that might be a reflection on the quality of the strawberries more than on the quality of the muffins.)  But I still loved them.  They are moist and tasty and every so slightly crispy on top (from the cinnamon sugar topping).  The fruit doesn't make them soggy and doesn't sink all the way to the bottom, which is excellent.  The trick to the former is to dry off the fruit after you cut it.  The latter is achieved by spooning batter into the muffin cup to fill it about half way, putting the fruit in, then topping it with more batter (rather than folding the fruit into the batter before you scoop it into the muffin cups.)  I do think I filled them a little too high before I put in the fruit, but I didn't mind because I really like the fruit-less parts!  I think I will have to try these again with better strawberries and perhaps some mini chocolate chips!

Chocolate Chip Muffins, con't

  
As promised, here is more about the chocolate chip muffins I posted last night.  They are moist but still springy.  They have a lovely, slightly tangy, buttermilk flavor, which is great in muffins in general, but an especially nice compliment to the chocolate.   Speaking of, there are plenty of chocolate chips in the muffins, which is a huge plus in my book.  I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll leave it at this, they are really, really good chocolate chip muffins!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

  

The muffins from Cafe Fiorello inspired me to make my chocolate chip muffins.  (When I say my muffins, I mean the muffins I make from the Williams Sonoma Muffins Cookbook, but you know what I mean!)

Unfortunately, I don't get out of classes until quite late on Mondays so it's now very late and I'm exhausted so you'll have to forgive me for not writing more about these muffins tonight.  You'll have to get by with just this short blurb and a photo until sometime tomorrow (or later today, technically).  Sorry about that!