Buttertart Awesomeness!

Mmmm good Monday already! For this edition I bring you Butter tart Mini Muffins! These are so good you will have to give them away to stop eating them. For realz.
I have been on a buttertart binge (well not binge but my butt was paying the price) because the local tartery (Rachel's Tarts) makes the most delish deep butertart with a homemade super flakey crust. But at 160 calories a tart I coudn't keep up the habit. So when I was at one of our local farmers market and a woman had butter tart muffins I thought hey! this might be the answer. Alas, her muffins were just too much. Mostly too much sugar. But I thought hey, if I tone down the sugar and make them in a mini muffin tin we just might have something.

That was weeks and weeks ago. The muffins were baked on Friday. I ate little else for two days. Thank goodness they are gone! But ow I have another gift I can make for Christmas Presents. I found the recipe through a google search and it was perfect. You can find it here at Chatelaine.com. But, I like to give the recipe text for linkaphobes.
Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups ( 375 mL) raisins
• 3/4 cup ( 175 mL) granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup ( 125 mL) butter, cut into chunks
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup ( 125 mL) milk
• 1 tsp ( 5 mL) vanilla, rum or butterscotch flavouring
• 1-1/2 cups ( 375 mL) all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp ( 10 mL) baking powder
• 1 tsp ( 5 mL) baking soda
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup ( 125 mL) walnuts, chopped
• 1/3 cup ( 75 mL) corn or maple syrup

1. Place raisins, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring frequently, until mixture is hot, slightly thickened and just beginning to bubble, from 4 to 5 minutes. Cool slightly, uncovered, in the refrigerator, while continuing with recipe.
2. Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Grease 12 muffin cups or coat with cooking spray. Stir flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in centre and pour in warm raisin mixture, stirring just until combined. Stir in nuts until evenly mixed.
3. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Bake in centre of preheated 375F (190C) oven until golden and a cake tester inserted into centre of muffin comes out clean, from 15 to 17 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately pour about 1 teaspoon (5 mL) syrup over top of each muffin. Cool in cups for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack. Muffins are wonderful served warm. Store in a sealed bag at room temperature for up to 2 days or freeze.

* If you make mini muffins like I did, cook for 8 minutes and just drizzle a smidgeon of corn syrup on the top.

Upside Down Does Right by Me

Happy Monday! As mentioned in my last entry I managed to squeeze some baking into my wonderful weekend. I realize now that the last few entries have been goods that fit into muffin tins. This is not the only thing I bake. But It is just so simple, so sweet and so perfect for running out the door to have these portable little goodies on hand.
The goodies this time are Upside Down Apple & Honey Muffins. The apples and honey were both bought at the farmers market the same day and you could taste it. These were super simple, I dare say almost healthy and super tasty! The pieces of apple gave them flavour where normally sugar may have been used. next time I make these I am going to try and substitute whole wheat flour and see what happens. (I am currently out right now so unbleached all-purpose it was.)

Here is the recipe.

Apple & Honey Upside Down Muffins

* 3 apples
* 2 tbsp honey (the stronger the flavour the better, I used buckwheat)
* 2 tbsp cinnamon
* 2 tbsp sugar
* 2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
* 3/4 cups packed brown sugar
* 1 tbsp baking powder
* 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk substitute
* 1/4 cup oil

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Liberally grease muffin tin.

Mix cinnamon and sugar. Measurements are approximate because I used leftover cinnamon sugar sprinkle from my blueberry muffins made from "The Joy of Cooking" 75th anniversary edition. Sprinkle generously over muffin tin so that each cup has a nice coating of cinnamon and sugar.


Peel and core first apple. Dice into tiny pieces and mix with honey. Spoon into muffin tin. You don't need a lot in each cup, one good sized apple diced should be enough.

Mix all remaining ingredients together at once. Don't over stir (muffins hate it when you do that). The batter is not nearly as runny as most don't be alarmed at its stickiness.

Spoon mixture evenly into tins.

Slice remaining 2 apples thinly leaving peel on. Cut out core as pictured below. Place over batter in each cup.

Bake about 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes clean. (I used a non stick pan and this was the perfect amount of time you may need to adjust for different pan finish.)

Remove immediately from pan and let cool on rack. Makes 12 scrumptious muffins.

Mmm good Mondays!

Happy Labour Day my fellow North Americans! And a very happy Monday to any readers from other parts of the globe!

It has been a whirlwind time here in Sweet Home Ontario and so I have a lot of posts to post and yet not enough time. As a way to help me organize my thoughts I thought I might give a theme to a few days of the week starting with today. Mondays are officially Mmm Good Mondays! and as a premier post I bring to you Pineapple Banana Muffins!



Mmmmmm good right?

I recently had a lot of fresh pineapple around the kitchen that needed to be used up before it went to rot. This was a perfect way to use it up (that and dried pineapple flowers ala Martha Stewart). They took no time to make even without the help of my handy dandy Kitchen Aid counter top mixer. The muffins turned out perfect and lasted a couple days (I made two batches) tasting fresh(ish) right until the last muffin. Here is the recipe text copied from the Cathlin Cooks blog.

½ cup olive oil
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons rum
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup pineapple


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a muffin tin. In a large bowl, beat together the oil, brown sugar, vanilla, and rum. Combine the mashed bananas and eggs in a separate bowl and add to the sugar mixture. Beat until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir it into the banana mixture. Chop up a cup of fresh pineapple and add to batter. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and let cool in the tins before removing to cool completely.

***

As you can tell from the photo they turned out perfect and perfectly delicious. I would also like to point out it was tricky finding a recipe calling for fresh not canned pineapple and this one was worth the search.

Side note: As a child growing up i thought all pineapple tasted like that from a can. Was I surprised when I had my fist taste of fresh, perfectly ripened pineapple. I haven't been able to consider, let alone bake/cook with and or eat. But for at least twenty years prior I had no idea the deliciousness of a fresh pineapple. Crazy isn't it?!

The Joy of baking mini-muffins.

I had been craving blueberry muffins like mad a couple weeks ago so I finely buckled down and baked some. Ron had been insisting I make bread so I haven't baked anything to avoid the nagging lol. But when I went to finally make bread I discovered we had no yeast. So, blueberry muffins it was!

My best friend gave me the 75th Anniversary Edition of The Joy of Cooking for my birthday and it is quickly becoming my go to book. With 4500 recipes how could it not? But, on a more related note, I made their basic muffin mix, adding the blueberries and a 1/2 cup sour cream + 1/2 cup plain yogurt in lieu of the cream.

Here is a pic....



Mmmm just look at that cinnamon sugar sprinkle!

I could not find a link to the recipe sorry, you'll just have to read the text.

Basic muffin recipe (mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients)

Preheat oven to 400

Whisk in one bowl.
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Whisk in second bowl.
2 eggs
1 cup milk or cream (I used 1/2 sour cream + 1/2 plain yogurt)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter softened
1 tsp vanilla (which I totally forgot)

Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Add 1 1/2 cups blueberries and again stir until just combined. Do not over mix. batter should NOT be smooth.

Divide batter among muffin cups. (I used mini muffin cups and got 36)

Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes. (I did my first 24 for 14 minutes because I used frozen blueberries which chilled the batter significantly and the second batch of 12 for 12 minutes.)

If you are doing regular muffins bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.
If you are baking jumbo muffins bake at 400 22-25 minutes.



WARNING: If you make mini muffins like I did, you may end up eating a dozen before the cool. Just sayin'.