Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins with A Trefoil Girlscout Cookie and Heath Crumble Topping

These muffins turned out so well.  I love the crunch of the topping and the light, airiness of the cake.  Perfect for brunch or an after school snack!  Enjoy!

 

Ingredients

Crumble Topping

1/2 cup cookies crumbled (I used GirlScout Cookies: Trefoils but you can use any cookie)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Heath English Toffee Bits O Brickle Toffee Bits (sold with chocolate chips)
2 Tbsp flour
6 oz chocolate chips
2 Tbsp milk (if needed)

Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup ripe mashed banana
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
2/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and Oil the top of the muffin pan so the muffin tops release more easily.  Then line  the muffin cups with paper liners or grease them well.  
In a medium bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together.
In a mixer bowl, use the paddle attachment to mash the bananas until no lumps exist.  Add the eggs and then mix in the remaining ingredients one by one, including the chocolate chips
Add the dry ingredients but do no over mix.  Only mix for approximately 1-2 minutes. Use your spatula to scrape the bowl and give a final mix before filling the cups.
Fill muffin cups to completely full. They will rise to spill over the top and create a muffin top. .
Bake for 8 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 and add the crumble (recipe above) and continue baking for another 6-10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Let the muffins sit in the pans for a few minutes before removing them to wire racks to cool.

Pretty Posey Cupcake Wrapper Freebie

 I see this wrapper used for baby showers, or maybe a girly tea, but really it could be used for anything.  I think it is adorable!  I may have to come up with a party just so I can use it.

If you need directions regarding how to use these wrappers, go here.

 

 

I have been using the Reynold's Stay Brite cupcake papers.  They are AWESOME! They are lined with aluminum foil type of stuff and they actually really keep their cuteness after they are baked.  The paper ones always soak through and lose their prettiness after they are baked. 

Here are a few cupcakes I made using these baking cups. These were actually baked in these cups!

Anyway, here is a link to the Reynold's papers.  I love them.  You may be able to find them in your grocery store too.  I am going to look at Walmart to see if they have them.  I will let you know.


Reynolds Stay Brite Baked for You Sophisticated Bake Cups 36 Ct 2 Packs

School Is Out For The Summer Party

We are SO looking forward to Summer!  Tomorrow is the last day of school so we are having some kids over to swim (and/or) play videogames.  So, I set up the back porch for the party.  The pool is 68 degrees, so I think the kids will probably be playing outside and playing videogames. 

 

I used a needle and thread to string balloons and the banner.  The close-up of the letters are below.

I took some card blanks that I found at Walmart and decorated the fronts with letters.  I then put them over the string and stapled them to it.

 

I also made brownie cupcakes with a yummy buttercream icing to which I added extra salt.  It is really good! The recipe for the buttercream is below! I also made some little pin wheels as toppers.  I'm also serving some chips and such.

Here is the set-up for tomorrow.

 

 

  

 

The napkin wrappers are tied with Lifesavers. :-)

 

 

Buttercream Icing

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened... don't melt it though.

3-4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1-3 tbsp. milk

 

Directions

 

Beat the butter with the paddle attachment of your mixer. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar on low until incorporated.  Increase the speed to medium and add the vanilla, salt and 1 tbsp. milk.  Beat for 3 minutes.  If your icing is too stiff, add some more milk.  If it is too thin, add powdered sugar 1 tbsp. at a time. 

 

 

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Mmmmm..... I had been thinking about making pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin mousse, etc. etc. for a while now.  Fall is finally here.  Our leaves have begun to change in upstate NY and the weather at night is getting cooler.  The sweater and riding boots have come out and I am ready for PUMPKIN!  I bookmarked and pinned A LOT of recipes, so I pulled up the first one I saw and made them today.   I don't know if I need to move on in the list of pumpkin recipes.  This one is so good and so easy that I think I will make it again!

Check these out!

The swirl of the vanilla cheesecake mixed in lightly with the spicy pumpkin batter is a perfect mix of fall goodness!  I found this recipe on instructables.com. If you are comfortable with just following the recipe, you can check mine out.  I made a few changes to the recipe and it turned out perfectly, so I will tell you that I tried to make them a little more healthy and used whole wheat flour rather than white.  I also replaced the white sugar with brown just because I had no white sugar on hand and it was delicious!

Here is a link if you would like to see the STEP by STEP tutorial. 

Here is the recipe as I made it.

Pumpkin Muffin

1- 15 oz can pumpkin

1/4 cup canola oil

2 jumbo eggs

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Filling

8 oz cream cheese at room temperature

1 jumbo egg yolk

5 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix pumpkin, oil and sugar together on low.  Add in eggs and vanilla and mix in.  Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.  Combine thoroughly and scrape the sides of the bowl until well combined.

Make the filling:

Mix together cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla until combined.

Assemble:

Line your muffin tins with paper cups (or grease your muffin tins if you don't want to use paper cups).  Drop in spoonfuls of pumpkin mixture to fill about 1/2 way.  Add smaller spoonfuls of cream cheese mixture to top to fill the cup to about 3/4 full.  Use a skewer or spoon handle to swirl.

Bake:

Mini muffins:  20-25 minutes

Standard muffins:  25-30 minutes

Jumbo muffins:  30-40 minutes

Kid's Hot Cocoa Birthday Party

My son's 9th birthday happens to fall right before Christmas, so this year we moved his party ahead and celebrated early.  Why didn't I do this before?  It gave me a lot of time to prepare and we had a blast getting ready instead of putting this on top of present wrapping and Christmas parties & dinners.

I decorate mostly in red, white and light blue for Christmas, so I decided to go with those colors for his party too.  I am sure the pictures speak for themselves.  Everyone had a good time and the cocoas (especially the Nutella cocoa) were yummy!

I found a lot of these ideas on the internet by searching for hot cocoa party!

These cups are made using those GIANT marshmallows!

The table is wrapped with wrapping paper.

Did I mention that my son has a large personality?

The cake is a Mario Power-UP mushroom.  I just baked a cake in a large metal mixing bowl, put it on top of a cake stand, covered it with chocolate icing, rolled fondant and painted eyes on the bottom of the cake stand with chocolate.

Happy birthday, to my little one!