Cinnamon Crumb Top Muffins

We have had a few snow days here is Texas and it brings out the baking monster in me!  There is no better way to spend a snowy morning than to fill your home with the smell of sweet baking goodness! When I saw these muffins they called to me!  I just had to try them, and they made our snowy day off of school so delightful!  You know calories don't count when the kids have a snow day, right?! I found the recipe here, changed it a smidgen and devoured these beauties!

Cinnamon Crumb Top Muffins

makes 12 muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t baking soda

2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/3 cup oil (I used avocado oil)

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

The Crumb Topping

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 cups flour

Glaze

1/4 -1/2 cup powdered sugar

1-2 t milk

Preheat oven to 375.  Prepare muffin pan by greasing or lining with paper liners, set aside. 

Make the crumb topping by combining sugars, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl.  Whisk in melted butter.  Add the flour and stir with a rubber spatula until moist.  Spread the mixture out on parchment paper to dry until ready to use.  

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  In a large glass measuring cup whisk together milk, oil, and eggs. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.  Scoop the batter evenly into prepared muffin pan.  Sprinkle with the crumb topping and gently press the crumbs into the batter.  Place into the preheated oven and bake for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.  

While the muffins are cooling whisk together the powdered sugar and the milk to make the glaze.  Drizzle glaze over the cooling muffins.  Serve while warm!

Peach Cobbler Muffins with Vanilla Bean Glaze

Peach season is one of my favorite times of year! Late summer, not quite fall, last Saturday before school starts time of year.  I used this muffin base with chocolate chips and kept thinking to myself, this is all wrong!  It needs peaches, not chocolate chips!  So a couple of days later I added fresh diced peaches and vanilla bean glaze.  And like magic, these muffins were born!  They will made as many times as possible during this most delicious season!  Happy going back to school!

Peach Cobbler Muffins with Vanilla Bean Glaze

(12 muffins)

2 cups flour

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup coconut oil

2 eggs

2 t vanilla

1 large peach (or two small ones) peeled and diced small

Vanilla Bean Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2 T milk

1/2 t vanilla bean paste (you can use vanilla extract too)

For the muffins:

Preheat the oven to 400.  Grease muffin pan or use liners.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugars, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, coconut oil and vanilla bean paste.  I add the coconut oil to the warm butter and stir them together to melt the coconut oil.  

Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until almost all the flour is absorbed.  Add the diced peaches and gently fold them in until they are incorporated and the flour is all absorbed.  Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the edges are golden brown.  While the muffins are cooking make the glaze.  

For the Glaze:

Place all the glaze ingredients into a bowl and whisk until smooth.  While the muffins are still hot, drizzle glaze over the muffins.  Let them cool for 5-10 minutes.  Serve warm!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

So Yummy!  I didn't have any buttermilk to make my usual banana muffins so I went on a search for a recipe that didn't use buttermilk.  I found this recipe on the King Arthur Flour website.  They have never led me astray and this recipe just boosted my confidence in them!  You can really put whatever chips or nuts you want in them or leave them all out but I have to say the combo of semi-sweet chocolate and cinnamon chips was divine!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
(12 muffins)

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup mashed, ripe bananas (I used 2 medium)
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1/4 t coconut flavor (optional, but so good)
1/3 c milk
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 cups flour (you can use half white and half whole wheat)
3/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)
3/4 cup cinnamon chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly grease a muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.  Beat in the banana, egg, vanilla, coconut flavor, and milk. Add the baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour and stir until smooth.  Add the chips (if using) and then divide evenly into the prepared muffin pan.  Bake the muffins at 350 for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

Saturdays at our house are usually pancake/waffle day but sometimes I just need to mix it up a little. And I NEEDED chocolate today (ok, I need Chocolate everyday!) But, at least this way, I could disguise it as breakfast!  These muffins are moist and delicious and who doesn't love banana and chocolate!

Chocolate Banana Muffins

(12 muffins)

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3/4 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 t cinnamon

3 very ripe bananas, pureed (about 1 1/2 cups)

6 T butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 1/2 t vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease or line a muffin pan and set aside. In a large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.  In a medium bowl whisk together bananas, eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla.  Mix the wet mixture into the dry by gently folding it with a rubber spatula.  Add chocolate chips, being careful to NOT over mix the batter.  Fill the muffin cups until almost full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, be careful to not over bake.  They are done when a toothpick comes out with some moist crumbs on it.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

I have a love affair with muffins.  I could eat them everyday, although I try my best not to!  I also have a love affair with fresh blueberries, Michigan has taught me this.  So when I first saw these, I just couldn't resist (I did adapt the recipe though)!  The first batch I made I kinda forget to put in the egg (yes I am losing my mind, it goes a little more with each child I have) and had to add it AFTER the blueberries.  Lets just say they tasted great but the dull blue color just wasn't very appetizing to photograph.  But the whole thing made for a fantastic excuse to make muffins again!  He, he, he!

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

(makes 12 muffins)

1 1/4 cups flour

1 cup quick oats

1/2 cup sugar

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 egg

1 t vanilla

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup oil

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Topping:

2 T sugar

1/4 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400.  Grease or paper line a muffin pan. 

In a bowl, combine the first 6 ingredients.  In another bowl mix together water, oil, egg and vanilla.  Stir this into the dry ingredients until just moistened.  Gently fold in the blueberries.  (Do NOT defrost frozen blueberries)

Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full.  Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the batter in the muffin pan.  Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Pumpkin Muffins

There is just something magical about the smell of baking pumpkin in my house this time of year!  We have had an uncommonly warm and snow-free Fall here in Michigan (NOT that I am complaining) but it is  making it a little hard for me to believe that Thanksgiving is less than a week away!  So, this morning I needed something to get me in the mood for this beautiful, thankful season.  When I came across these muffins here, I knew they were just what I needed.  I adapted the recipe to my liking and the results were so perfectly pumpkin-y and Fall-ish! (Yes, I just made up both of those words)!

Pumpkin Muffins

(12 muffins)

1 2/3 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground ginger

1/2 t ground cloves 

1 t ground nutmeg

1 t baking soda

1/4 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 eggs

1 t orange zest

1 cup pumpkin

1 stick (4 oz) butter, melted

6 oz white chocolate chips (or semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, salt and orange zest.  In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, eggs and melted butter, until smooth.  Combine the wet and dry ingredients until almost all the dry ingredients and moistened.  Add the chocolate chips and mix until the ingredients are just combined. (DO NOT over mix!)  Scoop batter into a greased or paper cup lined muffin tin.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are puffed up and springy to the touch.  Cool on a wire rack.  

Day 92 - Cornbread Muffins

In my daily perusals of blogs the other day, I happened across a site called Bloggers Bake for Hope. 

The following is taken from the About page on Bloggers Bake for Hope:
Bake for Hope is a week long, nation-wide, 100% volunteer-run, bake sale event happening, the week leading up to Mother's Day. Proceeds donated to local Susan G. Komen for the Cure affiliates.

Bloggers Bake for Hope is a virtual bake sale. Bloggers will donate their time, ingredients, and shipping costs so there are no expenses associated with this virtual bake sale. All proceeds from the bake sale will be sent to the Massachusetts Komen for the Cure.

Jen and Cara, two Boston area food bloggers have teamed up for a project called Bloggers Bake for Hope, a virtual bake sale as part of Bake for Hope. Jen serves up sweets at Beantown Baker, while Cara shares healthy, creative dinners at Cara’s Cravings. 

Both Cara and Jen have been successful fundraisers for Susan G. Komen for the Cure in the past. Cara is currently organizing the third annual Bake for Hope at her company’s office site in Marlboro, MA. Last year’s event raised over $2500. Jen has made breast cancer awareness part of her personal mission. In 2004, Jen’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then, Jen, her sisters, mom, and aunts walk the Race for the Cure every year. Jen and her family have raised thousands of dollars for the various Komen for the Cure affiliates.

Jen and Cara feel a strong connection to the cause, and are avid bloggers with a strong following. Thus, teaming up to host an online bake sale seemed like a fun and natural way to take things to the next level. The virtual bake sale will take place on May 4-6, 2011. Bloggers and bakers from across the country will agree in advance to donate baked goods. Buyers will make virtual pledges on the Bloggers Bake for Hope site, and at the close of the bake sale the highest bidders will be awarded the donated baked goods. They will make their donations via PayPal, and the bakers will then bake and ship their goods. Because the bakers are donating their ingredients, time, and shipping costs, there are no expenses associated with the virtual bake sale. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Massachusetts Komen for the Cure. Jen and Cara are challenging their fellow bakers and bloggers to help them raise $2000 through Bloggers Bake for Hope. 


Years ago I participated and raised donations in a cancer walk back in Rhode Island. 
As many of you know my mother passed away from breast cancer in 1992 at the age of 47.  She had been diagnosed in 1977 at the age of 32.  I am also doing this in honor of her sister and my aunt, Jeanne, and my very close friend, Tina, who are both breast cancer survivors.  I am baking two dozen Pignoli Cookies and then shipping them to the person who pledges the most.  
There are many bloggers who will be participating and I am honored to be able to contribute.  I know there will be absolutely delicious items donated and I encourage you all to look at the site and make a pledge on some baked goods.  I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.It's horrible!

I was able to bake today and I'm now a happy camper. 
It was good to be back in the kitchen.

I used The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics, p. 569-570; author, Martha Stewart; publisher, Clarkson Potter/ Publishers, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 978-0-307-39383-8.

Cornbread Muffins - makes 12

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the muffin tin
1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup confectioners' sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise
2 large eggs
1½ cups buttermilk (I used buttermilk powder and water.)Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Brush a 12-cup standard muffin tin with melted butter; set aside.  In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

(*I added 6 tablespoons buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients and just added 1½ cups water to the liquids.*)

In a small bowl, scrape in the vanilla seeds; add the eggs and buttermilk (water), and whisk to combine.  Pour over the flour mixture.  Add the 5 tablespoons butter, and stir until blended, using as few strokes as possible.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin, filling each cup three-quarters full.

Yeah, almost completely filled and I still had batter left over.

Bake until golden and firm to the touch, 17 to 20 minutes.  Serve warm.

I don't think they were supposed to look like this.

See the little vanilla bean seeds?

I have to say that these were the most moist cornbread muffins (say that 3 times fast!) I have ever had!  They were delicious!  I like cornbread and corn muffins, but I can't stand how dry they are sometimes. 

I use a rating system from 1-4 with 4 being the best, so these muffins earned 3½ rolling pins.  I will definitely be adding these to my recipe collection of keepers even though there was spillage on the tin.

No biggie. 

They were yummy anyway!

Happy baking!

Day 86 - Strawberry Carbon Dioxide Muffins - Intriguing, hunh?

  Are they SAFE to eat?

     The muffins are in the oven and I guess you could say that this was one of my "experimental baking days".  Uh-hunh.  I had strawberries sitting in the fridge because it has been "strawberry week" since they were on sale, so I wanted to incorporate them into something tonight.  I'm pressed for time, seeing as how it is now 10:30 pm and this is the first time I've been home all day for more than 45 minutes.  I left around 8 am to pick my daughter up at college for the weekend, and returned home around 1:30 to take my other daughter down to the DMV so she could take the road test for her driver's license.  Of course, any trip to the DMV is not a short one and requires a lengthy waiting period.  It is a very good place to people watch though, just like the airport.  After a good three hours, including travel time, waiting, and actual test taking, I am happy to report we now have a new driver in the family (happy at least until we receive the next month's statement for our car insurance).  Since we have all three kids home for the weekend we decided to go out to dinner and then go to a movie.  WHEN AM I SUPPOSED TO BAKE?!  My husband thought I should skip it for a day, but morally, I just don't think I can do that.  I said I was going to do this EVERY day. 
     But everything worked out, at least my having time enough to put something into the oven and blog about it.  I really have no idea how these are going to taste.  I remember having strawberries with balsamic vinegar and it was pretty good; in a muffin though, I'm not too sure.  I mixed the batter, added the vinegar, and started to notice that the baking powder was "working".  I then added the strawberries and popped them into the oven.  As I was cleaning up, I remembered back in junior high doing this really cool experiment where we built a volcano and used baking powder, vinegar, and red food coloring.  We put the baking powder in the mouth of the volcano, the red food coloring on top of that and then poured the vinegar into it.  WOW!!! That thing was spurting red, bubbly, foamy, runny, goop!  For kids in junior high, in the early 80's, in a small town in Rhode Island, it didn't get much better than that.  So, remembering this experiment, I decided to look the combination of baking powder and vinegar up and this is what I found:

Baking powder is sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) and some other stuff, vinegar is mainly acetic acid (CH₃COOH) in water.
Na⁺HCO₃^- + CH₃COOH → CH₃COO^-Na⁺+ CO₂ + H₂O
The resulting gas is carbon dioxide, you also get some water and some aqueous sodium acetate.

     Rosy - The Naked Scientists.com

This explains why I named them Strawberry Balsamic Carbon Dioxide Muffins.  I think the use of carbon dioxide really starts people wondering, don't you think? 

     Oops!  There goes the timer!  I'm off to retrieve these from the oven!  It does smell kind of yeasty and weird in the house.

    

     Strawberry Carbon Dioxide Muffins - makes 6 muffins

     1 cup white flour

     1½ teaspoons baking powder

     ¼ teaspoon salt

     1 tablespoon sugar

     1 egg, slightly beaten

     ½ cup milk

     2 tablespoons melted butter

     1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

     ½ cup diced strawberries

     Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

     Butter muffin pans.

     Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.



Ok, BRAIN FART!  Since when do you add an egg to your dry ingredients?!

     Add the egg, milk, butter, and balsamic vinegar, stirring only enough to dampen the flour; the batter should not be smooth.

     Gently fold in the strawberries.

     Spoon into the muffin pans, filling each cup over two-thirds full.

     Bake for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

     The strawberries were a nice addition because I really liked the flavor and they made the muffins really moist.  The vinegar, I have to say, gave the muffins a little kick.  They weren't bad, just different.  However, I don't know if I'd make them again unless to improve them, and I'm certainly not making them for company.

     I have a rating system of 1-4 with 4 being the best and I have to give these 2 rolling pins.  No one else is awake to try them, so other opinions will have to wait until tomorrow morning along with the pictures.  Sleep well, everyone.
     And yes, they are safe to eat.

     Happy baking!

    

    

    

Berry Buttermilk Muffins

I just want you to know that I am forgoing my shower to get this recipe to you! These muffins are that good {AND beautiful, don't you think?} My wonderful sister-in-law Teresa gave this recipe to me and I love her even more (if that is even possible) for it! Now, I already know she has great taste (we married brothers after all!) but I truly think we are soul sisters in food. My L.O.V.E. for muffins runs deep but these just brought it to a whole new level. Now that I have talked them up so much, you better get cooking!

Berry Buttermilk Muffins

(12 muffins)

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

zest of one orange (I used two cutie mandarin oranges)

1 egg, slightly beaten

3/4 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup oil

1 t vanilla

2 cups fresh or frozen berries (I used a frozen triple berry mix from Costco)

*sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg*- mixed together to sprinkle over the tops

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 12-muffin pan. In a bowl whisk together buttermilk, egg, vanilla and oil, set aside. In another large bowl mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and orange zest. Gently fold in the berries (mine were still frozen) until coated with flour mixture. Now, fold in the wet ingredients and mix carefully until the flour is absorbed being careful not to over mix (this will make tough muffins). Divide batter evenly between 12 muffin cups and sprinkle the tops with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg mixture. Place in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean (it may be a little longer if your berries are frozen) . Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes before taking them out of the pan.

Day 82 - Buttermilk Pecan Muffins

    
     I'm going to keep today's post short because I'm feeling a little achy.  We have a bug that has invaded our home and has some of us quite under the weather.  So I'm going to make this a quick one and retire for some much needed slumber. 
     I adapted this recipe from my Fannie Farmer Cookbook, p. 541; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.

     Buttermilk Pecan Muffins - makes 12 muffins

     2 cups white flour
     1 tablespoon baking powder
     ½ teaspoon salt
     2 tablespoons sugar
     1 egg slightly beaten
     1 cup buttermilk or sour milk (for sour milk - use 1 tablespoon vinegar for 1 cup of milk and let sit for 10-15 minutes)
     ¼ cup melted butter

     Preheat oven to 375ºF.
     Butter muffin pans.
     Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.
     Add the egg, buttermilk, and butter, stirring only enough to dampen the flour; the batter should not be smooth.  Spoon into the muffin pans, filling each cup about two-thirds full.

     Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

     Pecan Muffins.  Use ¼ cup sugar.  Add ½ cup chopped pecans to the batter.  In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons sugar, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ cup chopped pecans. 

After filling the cups, sprinkle sugar, cinnamon and pecan mixture on muffin tops.

     I printed the full recipe which will make 12 muffins, but I halved it because I only wanted 6 of them.  I liked these, as did my son.  My husband hasn't had one, yet.  I have a rating system based on a scale of 1-4.  These muffins earned 3 rolling pins.  They were moist on the inside and I really liked the chopped pecans throughout the muffin.  I also really liked the topping.
     Happy baking!

Day 59 - Sticky Orange Muffins

     Today was a very full day of baseball.  My son's school team was in a tournament and they played three games.  Needless to say, baking wasn't done during the day and I started at 7:30.  These muffins really didn't take too long to make, so they could easily be done the morning you plan to eat them.  They taste better warm, too.
     The Sticky Orange Muffins came from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook Thirteenth Edition, p. 543; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.

     Sticky Orange Muffins

     2 oranges
     ¼ cup honey
     2 cups flour
     ½ cup uncooked oatmeal or oat bran (not instant)
     1 tablespoon baking powder
     1 teaspoon salt
     ½ cup sugar
     2 eggs, lightly beaten
     2/3 cup milk
     5 tablespoons butter, melted (about 1/3 cup)

     Preheat oven to 400ºF.
     Grease muffin pans.  Using the small side of a grater, grate the rind from the oranges, removing only the bright orange part; set aside.  With a sharp knife remove all the remaining peel and, if necessary, trim the oranges all around so that the slices will fit in the bottom of your muffin cups.

Cut the oranges into slices about ¼ inch thick, remove any seeds, and set the slices aside.  Put about 1 teaspoon of honey in the bottom of each muffin cup and place an orange slice on top.

     In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal or oat bran, baking powder, salt, and sugar, and stir to mix.  Add the reserved orange rind, eggs, milk, and melted butter, and stir until just mixed. 

Spoon the batter over the orange slices, filling each cup about two-thirds full. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a broomstraw (what the heck is a BROOMSTRAW?) or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Serve warm.

     I halved the recipe and unlike yesterday didn't burn anything!  Wait, except the butter when I melted it, but not the muffins. These were easy to make; the only difficulty I had was cutting the orange into small enough rounds to fit into the tins.

     I rate the things I bake on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the best.  These Sticky Orange muffins earned 3½ rolling pins.  They were moist on the inside and the taste of the honey combined with the orange was quite tasty.

     Happy Baking!

Day 39 - Blueberry Muffins

     So I climb into bed last night and I'm lying there for about 10 minutes when I feel something crawl across my nose.  I SAT UP IN BED SO FAST!!!!!  I'm brushing my nose, rubbling my hands all over my face.  I'm running my fingers through my hair, then I'm doing wide sweeps of the covers and of my pillow.  All of this is going on in the dark mind you because the light switch next to bedroom door was off, so I couldn't turn the light on my nightstand on.  I was freaking out!  And I was making so much noise rustling the covers I'm extremely surprised my husband didn't say anything.  I race to the light switch, turn on the light and then closely examine the pillow, covers, floor and surrounding area because there is NO way that bugger is crawling on me again!  Nothing.  I didn't see a thing.  For all I know, I probably smeared him on my pillow, but I'm sure I would've felt that.  I was so eeeked out and jittery!!  You have to understand that I'm really not afraid of bugs, snakes or spiders.  I was the one at the vet clinic everyone came to to extinguish the little critters because no one else wanted to do it, except the doctor.  So, I really am not bothered by them WHEN I CAN SEE THEM AND DON'T FEEL THEM CRAWLING ON ME!!  Ooohh, chills just thinking about it.  I finally calmed myself down, turned off the light and climbed back into bed.  Every single one of my senses was on high alert, especially all those nerve endings on my skin.  I'm lying there wondering if I should go into another unoccupied bedroom and then I started thinking about the mouse we had in our old house. 
     Back in Rhode Island, I was sitting at the kitchen table with the kids and there was a package of Keebler Peanut Butter Sticks on the counter.  The mouse came out from behind the oven and ran over to the cookies, took one out and tried to squeeze back behind the oven, but had the cookie positioned the wrong way - like carrying a log through a door, he had it the long way instead of the end going through first.  He figured it out though.  It was pretty remarkable to see him reposition himself so that he could finally fit and take his prized possession with him.  Usually, people scream and jump on to chairs when they see a mouse, but I was entertained. However, I was really disgusted with the fact that he ran on the counter and contaminated a newly opened bag of really good cookies.
     So, yeah, this was something I thought about while lying there in bed, too.  Little creepy crawly things that really don't bother me.  What really does bother me are things that fly and come into my home.  Again, back in Rhode Island we had a chimney and on occasion birds would fly down and then be stuck in the house trying to escape.  That really frightened me because they're scared, they're flying around and they're so doggone unpredictable.  Ha ha I haven't even gotten to today's recipe yet, but this is a story I have to share.  Our daughters were about 5 and 3 years old at the time and shared a bedroom.  Our son was an infant, and I had put him down to bed and was reading the girls their nightly bedtime story.  This night will forever be stuck in my head.  The book we were reading was  Emma at the Beach.  It's about a good, little witch named, Emma, and her friends, a cat, an owl, and a bat.  We're sitting on one of their beds, one of them on either side of me when I notice something black about the size of a small shoe on the floor that I hadn't noticed before.  I thought it was a pair of pants one of the girls had thrown on the floor.  I continued reading and the thing started to move.  Interesting.  What the...?  Then it started to fly!  It was a BAT, circling around in the bedroom!  OH MY GOSH!!!!!  I'm screaming.  My daughters are screaming.  I was FREAKING OUT!!!  All I could think about were stories where the bat gets stuck in a girl's hair and has rabies and bites her in the neck.  EEEEWWWW!!  So the three of us are screaming.  My husband's downstairs and I'm thinking why the heck (ok, hell) hasn't he come up yet with all this noise?  Light bulb goes on in my head:  I'll stand up, get the bat to follow me out of the room and the girls will be fine.  Ok, I stand up, open their door, look for the bat, run out of the room and slam the door behind me.  PHEW!  I hated doing that, but we're all ok, and every thing's fine.  Wait, the girls are still screaming.  Where's the bat?  OH MY GOD!!!!  They're in their room with the door shut and the bat is STILL flying around!!  WHAT KIND OF A MOTHER AM I???!!!  OH MY GOSH, I HAVE TO GO BACK IN THERE!!!  So, I stood there in the hall, yelling for my husband, who came running up the stairs, and then took a VERY deep breath and quickly opened the door to get the girls out of their room.  What a night!  Our neighbors ended up coming over because we knew their boys would be interested in seeing it.  We eventually caught it in a hamper and took it outside to release it, but it will forever live in our memories.  So ironic that we were reading a story that had a bat in it.
     Last night, after climbing into bed the second time, a couple minutes later I thought I felt something touching my leg.  Again, I'm on even higher alert and wondering if I'll be able to fall asleep.  Finally, exhaustion just took over and the lovely Mr. Sandman paid me a visit.  Yes, you can bet I washed our bedsheets this morning.  All this previous chit chat had no relevance to today's recipe, but was something I wanted to share.
     Blueberry Muffins was the recipe for today.  They came from Alton Brown at http://www.foodnetwork.com/
Here's the link, since I can't post the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/blueberry-muffins-recipe/reviews/index.html.  It called for cake flour, but I didn't have any, so I used regular.  And I also used Greek yogurt for the 1 cup of plain yogurt.

The sugar, egg, oil, and yogurt combined.

 Ready for baking!

Complete yummy goodness...

     I have to say that these were the most delicious blueberry muffins I have ever made.  Ok, to be honest, I've never made blueberry muffins from scratch, they've always been from those store bought mixes.  Not any more!  These are definitely the way to go!  They were so good!  The tops were nicely browned and a little chewy and crunchy and the inside was so moist.  MMMMMmmmmmmm......deliciousness!  The only problem I had was that even though I greased the muffin tins, they still stuck when I went to turn them out and about a quarter of the tops came off.  Next time, muffin cups.  This is where I'm going to gain most of my weight, eating the scraps of the goods that won't hold together.  A bit here, a piece there, it will all end up on my hips creating, are you ready, it just seems so appropriate with today's post, a MUFFIN TOP!  Sorry, hard for me to hold back on that one.  Also, they didn't rise up, they were more like flat muffins.  Maybe that was because I didn't use cake flour.  I didn't care though, those little bits and pieces were still delicious.  My rolling pin rating:  on a scale of 1-4 rolling pins with 4 being the best, Alton's Blueberry Muffins scored a 3½!
     Happy baking!