Peanut Butter & Jelly & Banana Muffins

I made these as a snack to bring along to a bachelorette party, and they were SO GOOD.

Tip: Don't put the sugar on top if you arent going to eat them soon. I put them in a big baggie, and the tops sorta turned to mush, because the sugar got soggy.

( recipe from Java Cupcake)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups ripe bananas (4-5 small bananas - I like chunks of bananas, so I don't over-mash mine)
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
  
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  
• 2 cups fresh raspberries (not frozen)
• 1/4 cup coarse sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw or Turbinado sugar)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Line cupcake/muffin tin with liners. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together mashed bananas, buttermilk, peanut butter and melted butter.
4. Add the eggs and sugars to the wet mixture and whisk until smooth.
5. Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and fold together with a spatula until just combined or until only a few flour lumps are visible.
6. Add the raspberries and gently fold into the batter. NOTE: Do Not over mix! You don't want to break up the raspberries or work the flour too much.
7. Gently scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin filling no more than 3/4 full. Top each muffin with the coarse sugar.
8. Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the muffins and the tops are golden brown.
9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before running a butter knife along the edges of the pan and inverting the bread onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Banana Bread

Adapted from My Kitchen Addiction.

Yep. I'm ADAPTING things, folks.

Kiiind of a big deal.

When friends Nic and Rob came to visit last week, they left an army of 5 bananas behind. I have commitment issues to eating a whole banana, so they just sat there.

And sat there.

Until I checked the clock.

BANANA BREAD TIME!

I adapted this a little bit. I only had whole wheat, so I didnt mix with regular flour. I used all 5 of my bananas, instead of the 3 in the recipe, I didn't have buttermilk, so I tossed some sour cream in there, and I added CHOCOLATE. Because I had it. Duh.

The result?

Omg.

Swoon.

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 5 mashed bananas
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/2 bar dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 325°F.  Lightly grease a standard 9-by-5-inch loaf pan and set aside.

Beat together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition to make sure the eggs are fully incorporated into the mixture. Stir in the mashed banana. OR, if you're lazy, like me, and don't want to dirty up another dish by mashing them, just toss the whole (peeled, obvs) bananas in the mixture and run your beaters through them a few time. It left mine a little chunky, which I'm all for. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Gradually add the dry mixture to the creamed butter mixture alternating with the sour cream (I didn't alternate, because I only had 1/4 cup of sour cream, compared to the 1/2 cup of buttermilk called out in the original recipe). Be sure to start and end with the dry ingredients, and mix on low speed just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

Fold in chocolate until just mixed.


Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan.  Bake for about 60 minutes (I went to 70 mins. I think the extra banana is probably to blame), until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffin Recipe

And more Pumpkin Day Prep! (recipe)

Ingredients

The muffins:
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (mine's just ww, not pastry. Worked fine.)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp espresso powder
• 2 tbsp hot water
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
• 2 tbsp canola oil
• 1 large egg
The topping:
• 1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

The muffins:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place 12 liners in a muffin tin and spray the liners with cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and salt.
3. In a small bowl, stir together espresso powder and hot water until espresso powder dissolves. Let it cool to room temperature.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl with a hand mixer), combine pumpkin, yogurt, brown sugar, canola oil, egg and espresso powder mixture. Mix on medium speed until well combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and beat on low speed until just combined.
6. Spoon the muffin batter into the prepared muffin cups.
7. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
8. Remove muffins from the pan and allow to cool. Serve.

I sampled one. FOR BLOGGING PURPOSES ONLY. Holy crap it's delicious. 

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten-free, if you wanna)

I first heard about these cookies on How Sweet It Is, but they're actually from Eat Live Run. When I first looked at the recipe, I was SHOCKED. I had almost everything on that list. Except regular sugar. I know it's weird, but I have zero sugar in my house. Don't judge me.

While looking at stuff to register I told LeGreg, "Well, we obviously have to register for a KitchenAid mixer. Every house needs one of those." To which he appropriately responded, "why do you need one of those? You never even bake!". What a dick, right?

So, I saw this recipe and was all "WATCH ME BAKE! I TOTALLY NEED THAT MIXER BECAUSE I BAKE SO MUCH!"

The fact that this recipe is so easy that you can use a spoon to mix it and I didn't even have to use my hand mixer is NOT THE POINT, PEOPLE.

I'm a baker, now.

That's the point.

Duh.

(Warning: this makes ELEVENTY MILLION cookies)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut oil, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

3 cups gluten-free oats (or old fashioned) (I used old fashioned. Or whatever the oatmeal is in my cupboard)

1 10-oz bag dark chocolate chips

1 cup almond butter

2 tbsp ground flax mixed with 6 tbsp warm water

2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the coconut oil, almond butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until well blended. Add vanilla extract and ground flax + water water mixture. Keep beating until everything is combined.

In another bowl, mix together the oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips. Mix until just combined—be careful not to overmix!

Roll small balls of dough and place three inches apart on a silpat or parchment paper-lined sheet tray. Do not flatten dough balls. Bake for 10-12 minutes until puffy. Let cool for 5 minutes on sheet tray before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

First off, I definitely completely forgot the vanilla, and I'm not sure it was missed. Not that I have anything to compare this to, but whatever.

Second off, almond butter is like semi-liquid gold. A cup of it is A LOT. I might have cried a little as I put the almost empty jar that I had just opened that morning back into the fridge. 

They WAY flattened out while they baked, so I used pretty tiny balls of dough. They look crunchy, but they're actually pretty chewy. AND DELICIOUS. 

But a little oily. Between the coconut oil and the almond butter, which is pretty oily itself, they're just a little....oily. I might try to remedy that next time, but I have no idea how yet. 

BUT I'M TOTALLY A BAKER NOW.  So I'm sure I'll expertly figure it out. 

Things REAL bakers do? Forget to buy chocolate chips and use a dark chocolate bar that they find in the back of the freezer (because ugh, you can't binge eat dark chocolate, so why bother?) and chop it up to MAKE chocolate chips. 

Baker. 

Boom.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

It's an odd thing, spying a treat on Pinterest and then going to actually make it and finding yourself square in the middle of a religious website. The Mormon's lemon cookie game is on point, y'all. Not gonna lie.




Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.


I changed exactly nothing in the recipe. These were so light and perfectly sweet and lemony. They came together pretty quickly, too. I used a cookie dough scooper thingy, which sped the process up a bit.


These are a keeper, fo sho. 

Whole Wheat Banana Spice Muffins With Brown Butter Glaze

These muffins are pretty healthy!! ....without the glaze. But the glaze. Oh my word, the glaze. It's...heavenly. 

Whole Wheat Banana Spice Muffins

makes 12 muffins

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

1 large egg

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside. Line a muffin tin with liners.

In a large bowl, whisk egg and brown sugar together until smooth and no lumps remain. Add in vanilla extract, butter and milk, whisking again until smooth, then stir in mashed bananas. Gradually add in dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Fill each muffin liner 2/3 of the way full with batter (I use a 1/4 cup measure to get the muffins to be of equal size).

Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until tops are no longer wet and become slightly golden. Remove and let cool until comfortable to the touch.

Brown Butter Glaze

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/2-3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Heat a small saucepan over medium-low heat and add butter. Whisk constantly until melted, then continue to whisk as bubbles form, the butter begins to foam, and eventually brown bits appear in the bottom of the pan. This will take about 5-6 minutes total. As soon as the brown bits appear, remove from heat. I always stir for an additional 30 seconds or so. Let cool for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl combine brown butter, vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Whisk until the mixture comes together then add in 1 tablespoon of milk, continuing to mix. I always stir my glazes for a good 3-4 minutes so they really come together. If it still doesn’t appear glaze-like, add in milk 1/2 tablespoon at a time and mix again. Don’t worry if it becomes too liquidy – just add a tiny bit of powdered sugar until you get the desired consistency. Spoon glaze on warm muffins or dip each top in the glaze, then serve.

The glaze was very brown sugar/caramel-y. AND AMAZING.

Blueberry oatmeal muffin

Another camping recipe!

This is another one from Skinny Taste. Gina, over there, has got her recipes on and poppin, folks. 

• 1 1/2 cups Quaker quick oatmeal
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or skim milk)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 tbsp agave (or sugar, honey) (I used honey)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (I used regular whole wheat flour. It was cheaper.)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• baking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°. Line a muffin tin with liners and lightly spray with oil. (I didn't do the oil part, because I felt like it was redundant. MISTAKE. They stuck pretty well to the liners. I STILL think it's redunant, so I might just spray the pan and skip the liners next time.) 

Place oats in a food processor or chopper and pulse a few times. Soak oats in milk for about 30 minutes.  


In a medium bowl combine brown sugar, agave, apple sauce, vanilla, egg whites, oil and mix well.

In a third bowl combine whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and whisk to combine.

Combine oats and milk with sugar, applesauce mixture and mix well. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Fold in blueberries.

Spoon into the muffin tin (I filled the liners about 3/4 of the way. They didn't rise much, so I think I'll fill them a bit more next time) and bake for 22-24 minutes

When I took these out of the oven, the blueberries were all bubbly and blueberry-y. Looked SO good. 


Ok, technically I haven't had one yet, but they LOOK fantastic. I took one to my dad this morning for a taste test. "Why haven't you blogged about these yet?!". Because I haven't tried them! What if they suck! He assured me that they didn't and that they were really moist and "interesting" tasting. I'll update when I've had one or twelve myself.


Update: Pops is cray. These are AWESOME.

Zucchini Bread

LeGreg has a newly planted veggie garden at his place. When I was up last weekend, there was a pile of giant zucchinis on the table and I was told that I wasn't leaving without some. Arm: twisted.

My plan was to make zucchini bread. And it was an epic journey.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (No. Gross)

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.  

So. Here's the thing. I assume that, like my parents kitchen, MY kitchen will ALWAYS be stocked with the essentials. You know, flour, sugar, vanilla, etc. I mean, I've baked like twice before, so I'm sure I'm good and stocked up. 

 

I was not good and stocked up. 

 

And I was NOT going back to the effing store. 

 

Loaf pan? Didn't have. Used an 8x8 glass dish. 

 

White sugar? Didn't have. Used light brown sugar. 

 

Veggie oil? Didn't have. Stole some from Nic. (Hey Nic, I stole a cup of oil. SORRY FOR PARTYING). 

 

Vanilla? Didn't have. Used honey, because it was the only sweet thing I had. Even though vanilla isnt necessarily sweet.  

 

Baking soda? Didn't have. Didn't use. 

 

 So I basically didn't have or subbed half the ingredients. Given my track record in the past, the chances of this succeeding was...0%. But I was already balls deep and committed, so I continued on.

 

I thought that maybe it would cook faster, since it was shallower, so I set the timer for 45 mins. 45 mins later it was a dark wobbly mess. Ok, this isn't going well. I set the timer for another 15 mins. Stuck a knife in and it was covered in goo. About 30 mins LATER, the knife was finally clean! Cripes! 

 

I tasted a little bite when it cooled....and it was GOOD! Miracles happen, people. And they taste so good. It even has a nice crunchy crust along the top. I think that's from the brown sugar.

 

 I brought some in for "team food" at work, and it got a resounding THUMBS UP. 

 

I should just stop now, while I'm ahead.  

Raspberry Banana Bread

The thought of eating bananas always sounds great. They're sweet! They have potassium! Yay! So I buy them. Then they turn brown and die because it just seems like a really big commitment to eat a whole banana. You know? So, this morning I had 3 "ripe" bananas. Solution? Banana bread. Duh. I found this recipe and decided to give it a go.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cup fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries* (STUPID expensive right now, so I got frozen blackberries. Totally worked)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (blech. Do not want. If you do, go for it. I won't judge. Or make jokes about how you like nuts)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the eggs, bananas, oil and water. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raspberries and walnuts. Pour into two greased 8-in. x 4-in. x 2-in. loaf pans (I sprinkled a little brown sugar on top for a crusty sweet topping. Oh AND, I don't have loaf pans, so I used my glass 9x9. Worked fine). Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Final result: SUCCESSSSS!!! Super good. Warm it up (aka eat half of it while it's still warm from the oven) slather some butter on it and your mouth with thank you.

ps-Look at me substituting ingredients and not totally ruining the whole thing!!!! Ok, subbing blackberries for raspberries isn't exactly daring, but STILL.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

One of my friends is obsessed with cupcakes and I decided that I needed some in my life. I hopped on my favorite recipe website, AllRecipes, and got to searching. These little delights popped up and I knew they were the ones. Whole Foods used to (or maybe still does) have a version of these and they were heavenly, so I figured I'd give them a try.



Ingredients:

1 (8oz) package of cream cheese (I'll try light next time, since regular cream cheese was pretty stiff)
1 egg
1/3 cup white sugar
1/8 teas salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1.5 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup of cocoa (I used 1/3, which several reviewers suggested)
1 teas baking soda
1/2 teas salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar (pretty sure I grabbed the first non-apple vinegar that I found in the pantry. worked well enough)
1 teas vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350, lightly butter muffin tins

2. Beat together cream cheese, egg, sugar, salt. Stir in chocolate chips, set aside (I mixed, rather than 'beat', which is probably why the cream cheese was all lumpy for mine. Looked kinda gross, but still tasted awesome when they were done)

3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt (sift, to me, means run a fork through it a few times to break up the big lumps. I'm way too lazy to actually sift). Add the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat until well combined (surprisingly fast and easy). Batter will be thin.

4. Fill muffin cups 1/3 full with the chocolate batter. Top each one with a spoonful of cream cheese mixture.

5. Bake for 20-25 mins (the actual recipe says 30-35, but several of the reviews said that that was too much. I always check the reviews for modifications and tips on that website)

6. Eat approximately 5 in a 3 minute span with a huge glass of milk, because these are the SHIT, people.

I may or may not have added #6 myself. Still stands true, though. Trust me.