Showing posts with label giveaways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label giveaways. Show all posts

Friday, March 25, 2011

Doughnut Muffins and a Sick Day


We've still got snow. Boo.


On Fridays, the bf's office brings brings breakfast to work. Once a month, it's the bf's turn to bring something. Usually, he forgets until the last minute, but luckily, he reminded me yesterday.

With no ideas of what to bring, it was left up to me.

Awhile ago, I saw a blog post for doughnut muffins. But of course, I couldn't remember where I'd seen it.

So I googled. 

And I found this recipe

And they came out amazing and are so delicious:


There were some weird things about the recipe (like weird measurements), so I re-wrote some of it so it makes more sense:

For Muffin

3 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar, plus 1/8 cup of sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream (whipping cream works too)

For Topping 

1/4 cup butter, more if needed
1 cups sugar
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard muffin pan with muffin cups.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Combine the vanilla, milk and heavy cream.

3. With a spoon, mix a quarter of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Then mix in a third of the milk mixture. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and smooth, but don't overmix. 

4. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup, a little less than  a 1/2 cup. Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, about 25-30 minutes. 

5. To finish, Melt the butter for the dipping mixture in a small bowl. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in another bowl. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin, dip them into or brush them all over with the melted butter, and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.

Some tips:

1. Make sure you alternate wet and dry. The bf made the second batch and didn't know that this meant put in 1/4 dry ingredients, mix, put in 1/3 wet ingredients etc... I had to spend A LOT of time mixing to get the lumps out.

2. The batter is more like a dough than say a traditional muffin or cupcake batter. The recipe didn't note that and I was surprised and thought I might have added too much flour.

3. The recipe only makes 12 muffins. Shocking, but true. I wouldn't double the batch if you're making them by hand (like I did), but you could do this if you have a hand or stand mixer.

4. When you're putting the batter  into the muffin cups, you're going have to use your fingers. And it gets messy. You really do want the muffin cups FULL (I was skeptical too) and to get a smooth muffin top, you'll want to make sure the batter is completely flat. So on the second batch I floured my hands/fingers.

5. You could probably use the toothpick method to test done-ness, but I just touched them to test 
done-ness. 


They may not be great for you, but I'd bet they're better for you than a doughnut.


And also today the bf is home sick, so I took the muffins in myself. I can't have 24 of these bad boys sitting on my counter (I've already had two this morning alone). 

And I had to make a store run anyway for sick supplies...



Miss Freyja's elated to have someone who will lay and cuddle with her all day :)



Also, Fishtail Cottage is hosting a great Spring/Easter giveaway...




Hope you all have a happy (and healthy!) Friday :)


Linking up to:

Monday, October 18, 2010

I've been gone awhile...

I just realized today that it's been over a month since my last blog posting... I started school about a month ago, and it has literally taken over my life...

First Cowl
Other than having what seems like no spare time (something I always had when I was in college), I've been doing a bit of knitting when I have a bit of time. For some reason, I've been really into cowls lately; I wear a lot of scarves, but in the colder weather when scarves are necessarily bulkier, I hate how massive they feel. What I didn't know was that they were a fad some decades ago when I tried to explain to my mom what I was knitting.
 After I finished the first cowl, I started on a second, but it wasn't quite what I wanted... So I decided to create my own pattern; something I've never been great at.... It's a really simple cabled pattern but I decided on a provisionary cast-on and finished with a kitchner stitch so I could make it a mobius as well; this way, it keeps my neck really warm, but it doesn't get in the way of my face or chin.  I haven't had a chance to wear it yet so I'm postponing sewing in the ends as long as I possibly can. I'll try posting some more photos and the pattern in my next post.



I've also been knitting socks like crazy... They've always taken me way too long to justify finishing, but I've actually been able to get a pair done for myself and and I'm almost done with a pair for the bf. I prefer to keep socks simple, so it's just the basic magic loop pattern.




Freyja napping on the back of the couch in a sweater
 I've also knit a few dog sweaters for Freyja. It's getting colder here and she's definitely not used to it. The problem is, the majority of dog sweater patterns are created for dogs that are proportional, but miniature dachshunds are anything but proportional. I found some fairly inexpensive acrylic/wool chunky yarn that doesn't feel like plastic and knit up two different sweater patterns that are designed to better fit her little odd shaped body. One is intended to look like a fisherman's sweater and the other (pictured to the left) is done in a brioche rib, an interesting new stitch I picked up when I was trying to design my cowl.
Salt and pepper shakers

I also haven't blogged since I won Lisa @ Suburban Retreat's Giveaway! In honor of (Canadian) Thanksgiving, Lisa gave away a fall/thanksgiving tablecloth, salt and pepper shakers, fall candles and a gift card to Michaels (for yarn, of course!). I was honored to win and it made for a great addition to our first Canadian Thanksgiving!



Fall candles

Canadian Thanksgiving has always been a weird thing to me. My grandma, who is Canadian, often had a dinner in honor of Canadian Thanksgiving, but to me it was just that, a dinner. "Real" Thanksgiving isn't until late November. But I had my first opportunity to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. I'll make sure to get a blog up about that interesting adventure some time later this week....


Until next time.....