Chocolate Chip Muffin Tops

After quite a few weeks of fruit flavored baking, I decided to make chocolate chip muffins this week. I found this recipe which, interestingly enough, calls for melted instead of creamed butter. Otherwise this recipe is pretty much like a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe but with a more liquid dough. I also decided to use a muffin top pan instead of regular muffin tin. I think they came out pretty well, they certainly smell delicious.

In blog related news, I ordered a kitchen aid stand mixer. I've lusted after them for years but have been put off by the high price. That is, until now. ShopKitchenAid.com is having a 30% off the entire store special if you enter coupon code REBCC30 at checkout. Surprisingly, this includes their outlet store, which sells refurbished models. I ordered a refurbished heavy duty / professional series 5 quart 475 watt bowl lift stand mixer for $139.00 shipped after coupon. Unfortunatly it's indefinitly backordered but I'm hoping that it will be available in two weeks as the site states. When it gets here I'll have a full report, until then here is this week's recipe.


Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup light-brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 (11 1/2 ounce) package milk chocolate chips


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Grease muffin top pan
3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another bowl, stir together milk, eggs and butter until blended.
5. Make a well in center of dry ingredients.
6. Add milk mixture and stir just to combine and eliminate flour clumps.
7. Gently stir in chocolate chips.
8. Spoon batter into greased muffin cups.
9. Bake until golden brown and edges are slightly more brown. A toothpick should come out clean. Because each muffin top pan is different, you're going to have to keep your eye on them.
10. Cool in pan 5 minutes then remove to wire rack.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I've never made Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins before and figured I would give it a shot. I found this recipe online and it looked as good as any other. I think the flavor will be a bit on the subtle side so the addition of the glaze seems to be a necessity.



Ingredients

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tbsp poppy seeds

10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon zest

Glaze Ingredients

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Directions

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, poppy seeds, and salt and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy (about 2 minutes with an electric mixer). Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the lemon zest.
4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.
5. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups of a greased muffin tin. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set muffin pan on wire rack to cool. After 5 minutes, remove muffins from pan.
6. While the muffins are cooling, in a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice for the glaze. Add more lemon juice if necessary. While the muffins are still a bit warm, brush the glaze over each muffin.

Blueberry Jam Filled Cherry Muffins

I was searching for a jam filled muffin to use the amazing blueberry preserves I purchased at Ikea recently and stumbled upon this recipe. The original called for mixed berry yogurt and strawberry milk. I substituted 2% milk and cherry yogurt, mainly because that was what I had on hand. The preparation is straightforward, prepare the batter, spoon muffin cups half full with batter, add a spoonful of preserves and then add the rest of the batter on top. I also added cold water to one of the empty muffin tins which helps them rise and the tops from burning. They took 18-19 minutes but, because poking a toothpick to determine doneness only gets you a jam covered toothpick, it's a judgment call.



Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 stick butter, melted
1 cup cherry flavored yogurt
1/4 cup milk
Ikea Blueberry preserves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In another bowl, beat together egg and vanilla extract. Add melted butter, yogurt and milk, mix well. Add to flour mixture, stir just until blended.
4. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling half full. Add a spoonful of blueberry preserves; top with remaining batter.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 mins.

Lemon Cranberry Muffins

A good friend of mine suggested I bake lemon cranberry muffins this week. Unfortunately, she didn't have a recipe but thought the combination would work well together, and I have to agree with her. I found a recipe for Tim Horton's Style Lemon Cranberry Muffins. Apparently Tim Hortons is a Dunkin Donuts type shop that is popular in Canada and other places no one really wants to live. The recipe is very heavy on oats and sparing with flour. I think I'd prefer a more cake-like muffin if I were to use this recipe again and would use less oats and more flour. Also, the recipe called for egg beaters but I used real eggs instead. Curiously, the second batch came out much better than the first. This could be down to the baking powder having time to activate. Admittedly, I was having trouble controlling the temperature on my gas oven so that may have lead to poor showing. In an abundance of caution, I would let the batter sit 10 minutes before baking.


Ingredients
• 3 cups oats
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cranberries, rough chopped
• 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix oats, flour, baking powder, salt and chopped cranberries in one bowl; set aside.
3. In second bowl mix yogurt, oil, brown sugar, Egg Beaters, lemon peel, cinnamon and vanilla together. Fold all ingredients together in one bowl. Place batter into muffin tins (nonstick or lined with paper liners).
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes.
5. Allow to cool on wire rack out of the tins.

Blueberry and Blackberry Muffin

This recipe evolves from a recipe I stumbled across online for a standard blueberry muffin recipe. I made a few modifications and I think they came out nice. The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of brown sugar but reviewers reported that doubling that to 1/2 a cup worked well. Instead of blueberries I used a mix of 2/3 blueberries and 1/3 blackberries (which I cut into pieces the size of blueberries) for about 2 1/4 cups of berries. I ended up baking for 23 minutes because of a preference for less done muffins around the office. Because of this (and the absurd amount of fruit I put in) they ended up being hard to release from the tin (I used spray canola oil in a nonstick pan) and if I had to do it over, I would use muffin papers.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/3 cups fresh blueberries
• 2/3 cup fresh blackberries
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Spray muffin cups with non-stick cooking spray, or use cupcake liners.
2. In a medium-size bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon. Stir in milk, egg, and oil. Continue stirring until the mixture is well blended. Fold in the berries. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups, 2/3 full.
3. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until light golden brown.