Muffins with Triple the Tastiness

I often make banana muffins for the daycare kids.  That's not really anything spectacular.  But throw in a handful of blueberries and strawberries and that's something special.  And tasty.  Definitely tasty.  I also tried to keep the sugar content down because all that fruit really sweetens things up naturally.



I think the kids appreciated the effort because these were gone in a flash!  I am glad I was able to snap some pics to share before the pan was empty.  But it's okay because I like serving foods that fuel their play in a healthy way.

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 c flour


• 2-3 T sugar ( I use organic, unrefined)


• 1/4 c honey


• 2 t baking powder


• 1 t vanilla


• 1/4 t salt


• 2 large mashed bananas


• 1 egg


• 1/2 - 3/4 milk


• 1/4 c melter butter or oil


• 1/4 c chopped strawberries


• 1/4 c blueberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Line muffin tin with paper liners or grease well. Mash bananas and mix with honey, sugar and egg.  Mix remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then add to wet and mix until well incorporated, but don't overmix because it makes the muffins tough.  Start with 1/2 c of milk and add until the mixture moves freely and can be spooned into muffin tins.  Fold in strawberries and blueberries.  Spoon into muffin tins, about 3/4 way full.  Bake for about 15 -20 minutes or until browned.



What a great start to the day!  I hope you get to enjoy the day no matter where you are!

Sheri

Looking Ahead...and Enjoying Some Pumpkin Muffins Along the Way

I don't know if I've ever dreaded and awaited another week more than this one.  There's a lot going on and a lot of it affects our future so profoundly that it's hard not to let it overwhelm me.  I don't know about you, but when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I like to do things that I can control...like cleaning, cooking, shopping, etc.  I guess it gives me back that sense of control that I feel like I'm losing.  Not that I'm ever in control.  It's an illusion because, in reality, God is in control and I trust his promises and know that he won't leave us.  So, even when I'm feeling lost and alone, he's still there, guiding my way.  So, for the next few days I am going to try my best to leave Him in control and not try to interfere.  Very, very hard for me but still.  :)

This morning, I decided to make some pumpkin muffins.  I mean, fall is HERE in full force!  The temps are dipping and the leaves are falling.  I am looking forward to those cool weather runs ahead but hoping that my marathon next month will be seasonal temps, not too cold.  This weekend's trail half marathon in Lynchburg, VA was great temps, maybe just a tinge on the warm side because I was sweating a bit too much.  Or maybe that was just me working my butt off...?  Hmmm...I don't know.  It was a rough course though.  My official time was 3:08 and I was pretty disappointed.  My last trail half was 2:47 and I was really, really hoping to shave a minute or two off of that.  But I made the mistake that will do in any runner...I went out too fast.  Way too fast.  I mean like running 9 minute miles up the first hill fast.  Let me put that in perspective by saying that I usually run 10:30 pace.  By mile 7 I was bonking hard.  I waited too long to use fizzy hydration tablet and by the last hill at mile 12, I was dying.  But, I made it, and I'm trying to be proud of that.  I did place 3rd in my age group, but that was due more to the fact that there were only 6 people in my age group.  I know that the trails and hills are building my muscles up and for that I am thankful but I am still trying to hold out hope for a sub 5 hour marathon on November and this run made me start to worry.  At least my marathon is mostly flat!  :)



Back to those muffins...I found a recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins from the Girl Who Ate Everything and it was perfect.  I was short 2 eggs because our farm delivery hasn't made it here yet this morning but it was fine with 2 eggs.  I also tweaked the spices because I thought 1 t of cloves was excessive.  It was perfect with just a few dashes of cloves in it's place.  I also did not have time to freeze the cream cheese mixture and it was great as it was too.



The daycare kids were excited for these muffins. and had seconds and even shared a third.  They love muffins and muffins with cream cheese in the middle and sugar on top are especially a treat.  I also had an ulterior motive for making these muffins because while we were off running the trails at Liberty University, our neighbors were helping out with the dogs.  And some of these delicious muffins will make their way over to their house as a thank you.  Don't you love when you bake for other people?  I love sharing things that I love, so it makes me happy. Hopefully they enjoy them!  We are lucky to have good people like them in our lives.

I hope you all have a wonderful crisp fall morning!

Enjoy,

Sheri

Raspberry Granola Muffins

On the heels of my crazy-busy week wrapping up last week, a new addition was welcomed into our daycare family, which really is more like our own extended family.  I felt bad I had so little time to pull something together to celebrate the new little boy in their household, but as a quick treat, I decided to make some muffins.  I chose the muffin for a few reasons:  First, their oldest (love saying that!) son loves my muffins - okay, I tell myself it's my muffins, but really I think he just loves muffins. We'll just go with that as is.  Next, muffins are versatile.  They're breakfast, they're dessert, they're a snack.  All in all, they're whatever you need them to be.  I've used a muffin as an anchor to a lunch meal on a crazy day and the kids are thrilled beyond belief to find a muffin on their plate.  Lastly, muffins are easy to put together, cook quicker than most other baked goods and are still reasonably healthy.

With that in mind, I set to work making some muffins.  And I decided that muffins were loved enough by their son I could experiment a bit and he'd still eat them.  I don't think I needed to worry at all because when I dropped them off, he had almost a whole muffin polished off in the few minutes I had to spare cuddling his little brother.  I love kids.



These are the muffins I brought to them. Are they not beautiful??  And, although I was throwing things together, I do have a recipe!  Hurray!

Raspberry Granola Muffins

Makes about 1 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c granola of your choice (I used an organic raspberries and cream blend)


• 3/4 c sugar


• 1 1/4 c flour


• 1/2 T baking soda


• 1/4 c oil (I used a bit less than this but it was close)


• 1/2 c plain yogurt


• 1 beaten egg


• 1/2 c raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and either line or grease muffin tin


2. Mix all dry ingredients together first and then add wet ingredients to them.  Mix well.


3. Add raspberries and gently fold in.


4. Fill muffin cups 3/4 of the way full and put in oven.


5. Bake for about 15-18 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly and is slightly browned.


6. Let cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan.

I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as he did!!!

Enjoy,

Sheri

 

 

Craving chocolate? How about a Muffin?

I have been on a chocolate kick lately...it's just about all I want to eat.  I'm really not usually like that...I like chocolate but I can usually resist the temptation.  Not these days!  I want chocolate and I really want it a lot.  Who knows or understands these demands the body puts out, but I'm not arguing.  If you want chocolate, I figure, have chocolate.  Yeah, I think being sick for too many days has made me a little crazy, but just bear with me..  :)

I decided on chocolate chip muffins as a way to take care of two problems:

1) No more open chocolate chip bag in the pantry. Very tempting!

2) At least when I eat the chocolate, I'm getting a bit more bang for my buck.

So, I decided on a muffin with chocolate chips and dried cherries.  Oh my mouth was watering just thinking about it.  But, then I had a thought.  Hubby hates cherries and chocolate together.  What to do?  What to do?  Well, I did what I did with the coconut almond cups.  I split the batter in half, and made half of them with dried cherries and mixed peanut butter and sprinkled peanut butter chips on top of the rest.  Crisis averted.  Now back to my baking.

I found a recipe on Food Network and although I wasn't planning on a chocolate muffin, the recipe there just sounded too good and so one more layer of chocolate was added to my muffin plan.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from Food Network

1 3/4 c all purpose flour

2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

2 T cocoa powder

3/4 c sugar

3/4 c milk chocolate chips

1 c milk

1/3 c vegetable oil

1 egg

1 t vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, and chocolate chips into a large bowl. Pour all the liquid ingredients into a separate bowl and mix gently. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. At this point, I separated my batters, and added 1/2 c peanut butter to one and 1/2 c dried chopped cherries into the other.  You can mix anything in you'd like.

Pour into either a greased or paper lined muffin tin.  You can sprinkle additional chips on top of muffins before baking if you'd like.  Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are risen and springy.

These are really very moist, delicious muffins.  I hope you enjoy them!

 

Blueberry Muffins with Chia :-)

We're trying to add chia to our diet and picked up some milled chia flour at the store yesterday.  Which begs the question, what do I add it to?  It says you can add it to anything.  I opted for muffins. After my success with the brownies, who knows, they might even taste good.  I decided to use Brown Eyed Baker's recipe which you can find here. I really didn't make any major changes.  I did cut back on the sugar to about 3/4 cup, added in a scoop of chia flour and instead of sour cream I used plain greek yogurt. And her blog was right, these were perfect.  I loved the texture, the chia seeds were there, but no more noticeable than poppy seeds and they added a nice texture I thought.  And these were very pretty muffins!  I don't go to great pains to hide my blueberry swirls because I like the depth it adds, but that's just me.  Feel free to dredge your frozen berries in flour first.

I'm off to have a muffin...or two.  Like Brown Eyed Baker I have a muffin weakness!