Sunshine In A Muffin

Ever see a recipe that looks good then someone else makes it and put their twist on it and it seems so much more enticing? That's what happened to me with this recipe. This recipe comes from two fantastic and talented bakers, Jane (Jane's Sweets & Baking Journal) and Lululu (lululu at home). Between their pictures and descriptions of this beautiful muffin (and my adoration of anything with strawberries and cream cheese) these muffins were bound to be whipped up in my kitchen at some point. I made these around Valentine's Day and they were just LOVE-ly. 

These muffins were awesome. I simplified the instructions just a bit and added orange zest to brighten up my muffin batter. Strawberries and oranges are just so summery to me- I love that combo even more than strawberries and lemon. You get that same vibrant punch from the zest but it's much more aromatic and not as tart.

I think I liked these so much because they were so.....creamy. I'd describe the muffin to you, but Jane said it best when she said the cream cheese center "just barely evokes the flavor of cheesecake, and it's subtle enough so that it doesn't make the muffins too rich, nor does it make you feel like you're eating something that belongs on a dessert cart. It also doesn't firm up into a thickened streak within the muffin, but melds nicely into the batter itself, augmenting the moistness of the muffin's soft interior." Well said my friend. Well said. 

Strawberry-Orange Cream Cheese Muffins 

adapted from Jane's Baking Journal and lululu at home

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Cream Cheese Mixture: 

• 4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Muffins:

• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 Tablespoon orange zest
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup fresh strawberries, diced into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners and set aside. 

For The Cream Cheese Mixture: In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Set aside.

For The Muffins: In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, melted butter, orange zest, vanilla and eggs until incorporated.

Using a spatula, stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture. Stir until just combined but do not overmix.

Spoon  the batter into the prepared tins, filling them no more than 1/2 full.

Scatter a few pieces of strawberry on top of each one.

Top the strawberries with a teaspoon of cream cheese mixture, a tablespoon more of muffin batter, and finally a few more pieces of strawberry.

Bake the muffins for about 25 minutes, until they’re light golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes before removing them to a rack to cool. 

Makes about 15 muffins.

Going Bananas!

A couple weeks ago, I had eight black bananas sitting on my counter. The obvious choice would have been to make banana bread, but it's not my favorite thing to eat and if I'm going to consume the calories it better be something I want! When I have a couple ripe bananas to use, I usually make Strawberry Jello Salad that my husband loves so much. But I had 8. EIGHT. That's a lot of black bananas. So I turned to my peeps on Facebook (I finally joined FB- yay!) and my friends came through for me with these two recipes. 

First off, I have to tell you why I had so many dang bananas. My husband likes to eat a bowl of frozen fruit at night and he likes to add a banana to it to break up the cold. Well he was out of cherries so he quit eating the bananas. They started to turn brownish and he didn't want them anymore so he bought fresh green ones. I used up a couple in smoothies, then a couple more in peanut butter banana sandwiches, then the new bananas that he bought started to get speckles on them and he quit eating those too! At this point I was staring at bananas on the counter that got darker by the day and they started to smell. They needed to be used and I'm not a fan of freezing them. 

Chocolate Chip Banana Coffee Cake- Go HERE for the recipe. 

Allie from Eat at Allie's suggested I make muffins but that's not what I was craving at the time. I wanted something a little more indulgent so I called my banana loving friend Ingrid from 3B's. Without hesitation, she recommended a banana coffee cake with a chocolate chip streusel. Funny thing about that recipe, is that I recommended it to her over two years ago! The recipe came full circle and I made it. Danelle from Let's Dish made it too! The house smelled heavenly and it was delicious. A couple mornings later, I made Allie's banana crumb muffins to take to a friend. I saved a few for us to have for breakfast and they were equally good and simple to make. All that to say that, I now have two  new banana recipes and you do too! Enjoy my friends. 

Banana Crumb Muffins adapted from Eat at Allie's

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For The Topping: 

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

For The Muffins: 

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cups*.

Make the topping: In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon.

Use a fork to cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Place in refrigerator until ready to use. 

Make the muffins: In large bowl, mix the mashed bananas with the sugar, egg, vanilla and melted butter. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until just combined. 

Use an ice cream scoop to evenly disperse the batter into prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

*Makes 12-14 muffins. 

If you have any great recipes to use up ripe bananas, please let me know!

Festive Muffins for Eating and Sharing

I promised you all another eggnog recipe, and here it is! Only this one uses real eggnog and is enhanced with rum extract and nutmeg to heighten the eggnog flavor throughout the muffins. And nothing says its the holidays more than eggnog and cranberries nestled together in a spicy crumb topped  muffin. There's freshly ground nutmeg in the muffin, as well as cinnamon and more nutmeg in the topping. They're warm and spicy, then you get a tart little bite of the bright cranberry. They're moist and tender, then crumbly and crunchy. Delicious and perfect when eaten with an eggnog spiced hot coffee. 

I've made these a couple of times now, tweaking along the way until I was happy with them and now I'm sharing with you...and the neighbors. I made a fresh batch yesterday morning to take to the neighbors on either side of us. They usually bring over my favorite pecan butter balls and tins of still-warm-from-the-oven gingerbread. I love eating homemade baked goods, that I didn't have to labor over, don't you? So whether you choose to make these for yourself on Christmas morning or as gifts, keep in mind that this recipe only makes 9 muffins, which might be a good thing, if you can't seem to put down the cookies and need portion control (like me). 

Cranberry Eggnog Crumb Muffins from Monica h

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For the crumb topping:

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 Tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

For the muffins:

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup eggnog
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon rum extract
• 1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cranberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line 9 muffin cups with paper liners.  

To make the crumb topping: In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; stir to combine. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until a coarse, sandy mixture forms. Refrigerate the mixture, while you make the muffin batter. 

To make the muffins: In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, melted butter, egg, eggnog, vanilla and rum extract. Stir until well combined.  

Add flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg to the wet ingredients and stir just until incorporated.  The batter may appear thick and dry, once you add the cranberries, it will loosen up a bit. Fold the chopped cranberries into the batter, but do not overmix. 

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared muffin liners, filling them about two thirds of the way full.

Sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly on top of the muffin batter.

  

Bake for about 18-20 minutes, or a until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Makes 9 muffins. 

I have one more festive recipe for you, so I'll be back in a couple days. Happy Wednesday! 

Pumpkin, Cream Cheese and San Francisco

Here are the muffins I promised you a few days ago. I tried to get them up by Friday but it's hard blogging with a squirmy baby in your arms and typing with one hand while trying to balance a laptop on the armrest of the recliner. :-) But as they say, "better late than never" right? These muffins were fantastic so I'm glad to be sharing them with you today. Before I go any further, here's a picture of Hayden. After all, I know that's why you're really all here and I'd hate to make you scroll all the way down to the end of this post to see him. ha!

Last November I went to The Foodbuzz Fest in San Francisco. It was so much fun and it's coming up again next weekend. Unfortunately and fortunately I can't go this year because I'm a new mom and my baby needs me. Oh, what a great excuse to have! Once the fest was over, Mr. H joined me in SF for a couple days of rest and relaxation. While shopping around Union Square and the surrounding area we spotted a cupcakery by the name of Cako (pronounced Cake-O) and had to go in. Mr. H got a chocolate cupcake with coffee buttercream and I got their seasonal cupcake- pumpkin cream cheese with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting. That was truly one of the best cupcakes I've ever had.

I was hoping to be able to attend Foodbuzz 2011, just so I could go back to this bakery (amongst other destinations). I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true. It was a memorable cupcake. A couple weeks ago when I was dreaming about these cupcakes, I got online to browse some of my favorite blogs and found that Cassie of Cassie Craves had just posted Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins with a cinnamony streusel topping. Hello, come to momma! I then remembered that I bookmarked this exact recipe last year and never got around to making them. I was not going to let another year go by without making them.

I made these muffins right away and took them to my doctors office at my 6 week checkup. I gave away 22 muffins and kept 2 for Mr. H and myself. He didn't want his so I gladly ate it. I only wish that I kept more of them because they were delicious. They aren't quite as rich and sinful as the Cako cupcake I had in San Francisco last Fall, but they were moist, tender, full of spice and had a substantial amount of cream cheese baked right into the center of them. The topping was slightly crunchy and loaded with cinnamon. There are some great textures going on in this muffin and since they're called muffins and not cupcakes you can eat them for breakfast and not feel the least bit guilty. For those of you heading to San Francisco next week I hope you'll head to Cako and eat a cupcake for me. For all you others, make these muffins!

If you're looking to make a loaf instead, this Cream Cheese Rippled Pumpkin Bread is my favorite!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins adapted from Cassie Craves and Annie’s Eats

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For The Filling:

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For The Muffins:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1- 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

For The Topping:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

For The Filling: Combine the cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth.

Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Smooth the plastic wrap tightly around the log, and reinforce with a piece of foil. Transfer to the freezer and chill until at least slightly firm, at least 2 hours. (I made this a couple days in advance and left it in the fridge til I was ready for it.)

For The Muffins: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two muffin pans with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend.

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil. Mix on medium-low speed until blended. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.

For The Topping: Combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; whisk to blend. Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.

Assembly: Fill each muffin well with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom of the liner (1-2 tablespoons).

Slice the log of cream cheese filling into 24 equal pieces. Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well.

Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups, placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely. Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin wells.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.

Makes 24-26 muffins

If you're looking for Halloween recipes, give one of these a try:

• Spiderweb Brownies
• Black Cat Cookies
• Monster Cookies
• Halloween Cupcakes
• "Candy Corn" Rice Krispie Treats
• Dirt and Worm Cups
• Turkey Pesto Meatball "Eyeballs"
• Mummy Mix
• Sticky Salted Caramel Corn

Happy Halloween!

Tate's Bake Shop Winner and Teaser Muffins

The winner of the Tate's Bake Shop Giveaway is #50 Heather of Pages by Heather that said "Dark chocolate, yes please! And whole wheat...yipppeee :) And on the not so healthy side...I love pecan pie!" Oh Heather, I love pecan pie too! Enjoy the cookies and the cookbook!

And because I'm so behind on getting recipes blogged, here's a little tease. These muffins are coming soon!

Tastes Like Fall- Land O' Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter Spread and Giveaway (Closed)

I'd love to give you a list of things I've been creating in the kitchen but the list would be embarrassingly short and laughable. My days are all running into each other and I only know what day it is if I happen to leave the house, which is about once a week. I can tell you I make excellent breast milk 8 times daily- Hayden's one happy camper :-) Despite all that, I did manage to bake these awesomely gooey sticky-bun pumpkin muffins today. It took twice as long as usual since I had to stop every five minutes to rock Hayden back to sleep, but they eventually got made.

These beautiful pecans are from my in-laws pecan trees!

My MIL subscribes to Southern Living magazine and when she's done reading it, she gives it to me. Except this week, Mr. H read it first and pointed out this recipe in their "Nuts About Pecans" recipe section. Last month's magazine was all about apples and this one was about pecans- both have me drooling. I chose to make these muffins though because I needed to incorporate a special ingredient into them. Land O' Lakes now makes a Cinnamon Sugar Butter Spread and they sent me a couple coupons to try out their new product. It really is delicious and creamy and loaded with cinnamon. It's a sweet buttery spread but not overly so. I can imagine this spread on toasted bagels, pancakes and even baked sweet potatoes. Since it is so new, I had difficulty finding it at my local grocery stores. I searched 4 different locations before finding it at Wal-Mart.

For this recipe, I used the Land O' Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter Spread in place of canola oil. It worked out very well and intensified the cinnamon flavor in the muffins. I halved the recipe, made 12 muffins and had a little leftover batter to make a couple mini loaves. The pumpkin muffins were tender and moist while the nutty topping was sweet and sticky. They're definitely sweeter than the average muffin and would make great individual desserts. Mr. H and I shared one shortly after coming out of the oven and he declared that they tasted like Fall. I would agree and couldn't be happier that Summer is finally over. It was brutally hot these past few months and I gladly welcome cooler weather. I just hope it gets here soon because it's almost October and it was still over 100 degrees today!

Sticky-Bun Pumpkin Muffins adapted from Southern Living- October 2011

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• 1 cup pecan halves and pieces
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. light corn syrup
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ground all-spice
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 8 oz. canned pumpkin puree
• 6.5 oz. Land O' Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter, room temp.
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12-cup* muffin tin with non stick cooking spray and set aside.

Stir together melted butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Spoon 1 teaspoonful butter mixture into each muffin cup. Spread 1 Tablespoon of pecans over melted butter.

Stir together flour, sugar, spices, baking soda and salt in a large bowl, and make a well in the center of the mixture.

Whisk together pumpkin, Land O' Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter, eggs and water. Add to dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan, filling 3/4 full.

Bake at 350F for 22-28 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Invert pan immediately to remove muffins, then arrange muffins on a cooling rack. Spoon any remaining toppings in muffin cup over the muffins. Let cool 5 minutes.

*Makes 12-18 muffins

Alternatively, you could omit the sticky buttery nutty topping and just bake the bread with the pecans mixed in or you could place the chopped pecans on top of the batter and top with cinnamon sugar and bake in muffin tins or loaf pans. Bake until the center comes out clean.

Now onto the giveaway part of this post! The folks at Land O' Lakes have graciously sponsored this giveaway. They would like to offer one of you lucky readers the chance to win this "Make Breakfast Better" prize pack including a non-stick waffle skillet, flexible spatula, stainless-steel spreaders and more.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling me how you'd use the Land O' Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter Spread. One comment per person please and be sure to leave your contact info or link back to your blog should you be chosen as the winner.

I'll announce the winner early next week. Good luck to you all and thank you Land O' Lakes for the cinnamony goodness and the giveaway offer.

Exciting News and Delicious Muffins

I have a few exciting things to share with you this first day of November. Firstly, I'm going to San Francisco this weekend for the 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Blogger Fest! I am beyond thrilled to be heading out west. Obviously there will be cooler weather in California than in Texas, but also because I know I'm in for a fabulous weekend filled with beautiful sights, bloggie friends and food! My partner in crime for the duration of the weekend is going to be the lovely Debby of A Feast For The Eyes. I'm been chatting with Debby for a year and a half now and I'm thrilled to finally meet her. I only wish I was going to meet all of you there. If you are going, please let me know! After the Blogger Fest is over, Mr. H will be joining me for a couple days of rest and relaxation. I can't wait!

The second wonderful bit of news I have to share with you is that I got a new camera! Can I get a woot woot?! I had been saving up for several months and I am now a proud owner of a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. I got it a little over a week ago and I've been having fun with it. It is definitely an upgrade from my point and shoot Sony but there is a lot to learn. A lot. I did a lot of research to find the best deal and the internet pointed me to one of my favorite stores- Costco. The package I got isn't available on Costco. com anymore but it's still in stores. I'm not giving up on my Sony, because it's been a great camera but I will shoot more often with my new side kick. These photos were taken with the new camera. Hope you like them.

I put a few extra white chips on top of the muffins before they baked and they got overly brown in the oven. So while they were still warm, I flicked them off and replaced them with even more white chocolate pieces. Much better!

Now onto the goods. These are pumpkin white chocolate chip muffins and they were incredible. There are only 4 ingredients in this muffins (one of them is water) and they start off with a box mix (don't hate!) and I will definitely be making them again- they were that good! My husband is not a huge fan of pumpkin so they weren't his favorite, but I loved them. So much that I had second thoughts about sending them with him and his Dad to the YMCA for their Seniors with Alzheimer's group. I really wanted to keep at least half a dozen home with me so I could gorge, but I only had one. They were moist and sweet, spicy, fluffy and tender- everything a muffin should be. Please make these soon and enjoy!

Ooh, one more thing before you go...I now have a categorized and alphabetized Recipe Index on the tabs right underneath my header. So now you can search for a recipe with ease. If you use it (and I hope you will), let me know what you think!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins adapted from Cutting Edge of Ordinary

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• 1 box (18.25 oz) spice cake mix*
• 1-15 oz. can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup white or semi sweet chocolate chips (optional)

In a large bowl, combine the dry cake mix, the pumpkin puree and the water in a bowl and mix til well combined. Mix them up by hand, no electric mixer needed. Stir in the chocolate chips if using.

Scoop batter into lined muffins pan and fill 3/4 of the way full. Bake at 400 degrees F for approximately 20 minutes.

Makes about 18 muffins.

NOTE: You can use yellow cake mix but the spice cake has so much more flavor. Also if you choose, you can use sugar-free cake mix but it will produce denser, less tender muffins.

See you in a couple days for an anniversary giveaway!

Baking With My Mom and A Mini Giveaway

Before I tell you about these muffins I wanted to apologize for not checking in on your blogs over the past few days. I will get to them I promise, but I've been so sick that I haven't really been on the computer much. A couple weeks ago I noticed wheezing in my chest but I felt fine. I went to the doctor a few days later and was diagnosed with bronchitis. A took antibiotics, cough syrup and used an inhaler for a week and with each passing day I felt worse, not better. I went to get a chest x-ray and now I have pneumonia and I'm feeling pretty rotten. On top of all that I've developed a drug allergy and keep randomly breaking out in a rash all over my body. Fun times people.

Okay, enough of the pity party. I made these muffins with my momma! My mom is not much of a baker, mostly because she doesn't have the patience to follow a recipe. She just like to throw things in a pot and see how it turns out. That works out well if her creations aren't so great because she can't replicate them, but if something turns out really well and we all love it, she can never reproduce it. ha! Gotta love her. Anyway, I mentioned to her that I'd like to have her over to bake with me and she was so excited and knew just what she wanted to make. She saw a recipe in Parade Magazine for Dorie's lemon sour cream muffins and clipped it right away. It just so happens that I clipped the same recipe and I had all the ingredients to make them.

My mom mentioned that she painted her finger nails and I was teasing her telling her that she painted them for her guest appearance on my blog. I asked her to show them to me (so I could show them to you) and this is what she gave me. ha ha! Guess I asked for that one :-) Love you mom.

The recipe came together really quickly. We wanted them extra lemony so I added more lemon zest and juice. And I added a lemon sugar topping to them which made the tops super delicious but the muffin itself was mediocre at best and not very lemony. They were not very sweet and were very biscuit-like in texture and taste. The batter was very thick so I added a couple tablespoons of buttermilk to thin it out and that worked well. To make these more flavorful, we sliced them in half, buttered them and slathered on some tangy lemon curd. Besides baking with my mom, that was the best part. Then again you can slather just about anything with butter and lemon curd and it'll be good!

Lemony Sour Cream Muffins adapted from Dorie Greenspan via Parade

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• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced (I used 2- see note)
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp lemon extract
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp. buttermilk (see note)

Lemon Sugar:

• 6 teaspoons sugar
• Zest of one lemon

In a small bowl, combine the 6 tsp. of granulated sugar and zest of one lemon. Mix together and set aside while you make the batter.

Whisk the dry ingredients, including the lemon zest, together in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients, including the lemon juice.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry. Gently but quickly stir everything together. Don’t worry if you have a few lumps—they’re better than an overmixed batter.

Spoon batter into paper-lined or greased tins. Divide batter between 12 cups. Top each muffin with about 1/2 tsp. lemon sugar.

Bake at 400º for 18 to 20 minutes, until muffins are golden. Cool 5 minutes before unmolding.

NOTE: My batter was super thick so I added the juice of an extra lemon and a couple tablespoons of buttermilk to help thin it out.

Now on to the mini giveaway. When I said mini, I meant mini. My mom helped me pick these out and I thought they were too cute to pass up so I wanted to share with you. I liked them because their textures were so realistic.

Since I have 3 kitchen timers, I will choose 3 winners. Please let me know which one you'd prefer and I'll do my best to accommodate you. If you'd rather opt out of the giveaway, just say so in the comments section. One comment per person please.

Giveaway open to US residents only. The winners will be revealed on Wednesday. Be sure I can contact you if you win!

Annoying Habits

We just finished dinner and I'm snuggled up in my favorite chair with the laptop on my...well, lap. I am listening to Family Guy reruns in the background and waiting for 9pm to strike so I can meet my friend at the bookstore for coffee and chit chat. Sounds ideal huh? Minus the obnoxious cartoon in the background. ha!

You see, Mr. H will take the remote from me, change the channel and put it on something uber annoying. He'll watch it for about 15 minutes then head into the office to full around on the computer or he'll go to the garage to tinker and he leaves the remote on the couch across the room! That drives me batty. He does this ALL the time. Usually I jut ignore it because I'm reading blogs and it's just background noise, but I can't stand Family Guy's rude humor. Or a show about garage makeovers, or tow trucks or the Speed channel, or Vh-1's One Hit Wonders (for the umpteenth time).

My husband has horrible taste in television. It's not all bad but I've been subjected to some awful TV. And as I type this I'm watching Van Wilder's something or another. And the remote? Across the room on the couch far, far away from me (really it's only a few feet away from me but I'm lazy so it feels like miles). But despite this annoying habit, I love my husband and I vowed "for better or worse". And so I made him these pepperoni pizza puffs. They're like bite size pizzas baked into muffin pan. We had them for dinner with a side salad but I'd recommend them for appetizers too. They're kind of like pizza but puffy and a little like a quiche but loaded with pizza flavor. Feel free to make them with your favorite toppings.

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs adapted from Everyday with Rachael Ray and Cassie Craves

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• 3/4 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• pinch of salt (my addition, optional)
• pinch of red pepper flakes (my addition, optional)
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup cubed pepperoni
• 1/2 cup store-bought pizza sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 24-cup mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning, salt and red pepper flakes (if using) ; whisk in the milk and egg. Stir in the mozzarella, Parmesan and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

2. Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, microwave the pizza sauce until warmed through. Serve the puffs with the pizza sauce for dipping.

NOTE: All my batter did not fit into the 24-mini muffin pan. So I made a full size muffin with the leftover batter. Some pans are larger than others so you may not have have an issue.

Hope you all have a great weekend!