Muffins and Rolls

I got up early this morning - yeah, that means 10:00 - and decided to make my mom the muffins that she has been pestering me about.  She is apparently obsessed with the glazed doughnut muffins that I have made a few times before.  Since she is so picky, it's easy to just make her her favorites sometimes!  Luckily they are quick enough to whip up.  Since Mom demands these quite often, I will give you guys the recipe right here in the blog; she swears by them because they are cakey, soft, and spicy, and she is in love with nutmeg and cinnamon.  This was the first time I used my new silicone baking cups on them, and I am in love with them possibly more than the muffins.  No tedious cleaning of a muffin tin, no greasing, and they're dishwasher safe!  Wahoo!

Then tonight I ended up being home alone.  I wasn't sure what to do with myself, and then it hit me that it has been way too long since I last worked with yeast.  A quick scan through my yeasty pins, and I decided to make no-knead dinner rolls.  Now, to me, no-knead is really not as fabulous as it might be for normal people.  I love kneading bread (how did I get to be such a dork?).  But I thought I would give it a try since it says that it's a good bread for beginners.  I am not a beginner, but as I start to hear about more and more people actually reading my blog and trying out recipes (!!!!!), I figured it wouldn't hurt to try a few easy yeast recipes.  I cannot stress enough how amazing your house will smell when you bake yeast breads, and really, although yeast seems scary before you start working with it, it is actually quite easy.  There is a lot of time just sitting around waiting, and lots of sticky, doughy fingers :)  If you haven't made your own breads before, try this recipe.  Trust me.  Easy, and delicious.  From start to finish including rising time, these took about 3 hours and were pretty simple to make.  It makes a very sticky, soft dough, which was kind of fun to roll into a log and then cut it with my nifty pastry cutter (thanks Tuck and Linny!)  I did check my rolls in the oven when they still had about 10 minutes, and they were browning a bit too fast, so I tented them with foil like the recipe suggests.  I recommend checking your rolls after around 20 minutes just to be safe.  They came out perfect: hot, buttery, fluffy and delicious.  Unfortunately I am the only one around to enjoy them, but something tells me they will be a fabulous roll to house my chicken salad for lunch tomorrow (by the way, I have legitimately been living on that chicken salad for every lunch and dinner for the past two days.  Amazing).

Ran out of eggs tonight, and since I was home alone with Dad, that meant no more baking for me.  I have plenty of ideas for tomorrow though :)

Recipes:
no-knead dinner rolls

glazed doughnut muffins

from My Baking Addiction, adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:
For the Batter
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk

For the Glaze
3 tablespoons butter; melted
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons hot water

Directions1) Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin.  Or use your amazing silicone baking cups :)

2) In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth.
3) Add the eggs, beating to combine.

4) Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla.

5) Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined.

6) Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan, filling the cups nearly full.

7) Bake the muffins for 15 to 17 minutes, or until they’re a pale golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the middle of one of the center muffins comes out clean.

8.) In a medium bowl, prepare the glaze by mixing together the melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and water. Whisk until smooth.

9.) When muffins have cooled slightly, dip the muffin crown into the glaze and allow the glaze to harden. At this point, you can leave them as is or go for the double dip. I glazed my muffins twice, and I even drizzled the extra glaze over a couple of lucky triple-dippers.

10.) Serve warm, or cool on a rack and wrap airtight. Muffins will keep at room temperature for about a day.

Lobster Love

This weekend was another busy one.  I console myself by saying that it will all be okay after Friday, which, as well as being the golf tournament, is also the last day of school!  Lots of free time coming up.

Yesterday, Mom begged for another batch of the glazed doughnut muffins that I had made for Amanda earlier in the week.  I was going to Cathleen's birthday party, so I figured I would make a double batch.  Of course, once I buttered two muffin tins, I promptly forgot to double it and ended up with one batch, and an extra buttered pan.  More on that later.  The muffins were great as always!  My mom had apparently forgotten how much she loves them.  I'm sure I will be making these more now that we have rediscovered them!

At Cathleen's birthday, there was a lobster extravaganza.  Let's just say her mom threw her the tastiest birthday ever, but had way too many lobsters.  She gave us two to take home to my mother, who had apparently already eaten.  So tonight, we had two cooked lobsters to do with whatever we pleased!  It was just me and Mom home, and we were contemplating a good old lobster roll, but I figured that it is not every day I get lobster meat as an ingredient to use in a meal, and I wanted to do something more.  I found a recipe from the New York Times, and then Mom and I made a few changes.  We didn't use spaghetti, simply because we didn't have it; we used penne.  We didn't peel the tomatoes, because we aren't picky about that, and we didn't dice the lobster.  We roughly chopped it - we both agreed that we wanted to actually know when we got a piece of lobster in our mouths!  I also did not add the extra oil after sauteing the tomatoes; it was fine without it.  Neither of us used the red pepper flakes.  This made a huge amount and there is a lot leftover, which is great because Mom and I were both in love with this meal.  Sauteing the lobster with some fresh basil almost made the lobster sweeter (if that is even possible) and we both thought that even without the lobster, the tomato sauce was delicious and would be a great meal in and of itself.  Pretty excited for leftovers!

Also at the birthday party, Cathleen's mom made strawberry cheesecake ice cream.  I was thrilled when I asked for the recipe, and she showed me an ad for Philadelphia cream cheese.  It only had 3 steps, so I was really excited to try this out.  I made it this afternoon and it will be all ready tomorrow.  It is really easy, and I can say after having it at the party that it is absolutely delicious.  I foresee this ice cream being a regularly-made item in my house this summer!

Lastly - back to that extra buttered muffin tin!  I decided to make individual raspberry cobblers.  I had recently pinned this recipe, and thought it was perfect since it does not call for paper muffin cups!  Of course, it makes 24 cobblers, so I had to rebutter the other pan as well, but that is beside the point.  These were ridiculously easy to make (they were ready to go in the oven before it was even preheated, and that never happens!), but I have mixed feelings about the end result . First, the recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, which is kind of gross no matter what, but the butter seems to have made a chewy outside.  I guess I was expecting a different consisency.  Mom and Rachael both liked them, but I thought it was a bit strange.  Also, you were supposed to drop a handfull of raspberries into each cup, but my berries were huge, so I only put one in each.  The berries are supposed to sink to the bottom, but they didn't move at all.  That doesn't really matter though, but I figured I'd mention it.  I may like these, or I may hate them.  I have not decided yet.  I'll keep you posted.

For now, it is past 10:30, my report cards are not finished, I have a golf tournament to put on, and there are 4 days of school left.  I'd say it's time for bed to give me the energy to get through all this, not to mention make some rather amazing meals that I grocery shopped for today :)

Recipes:

glazed doughnut muffins

lobster spaghetti with fresh tomatoes
strawberry cheesecake ice cream

individual raspberry cobblers

Glazed Doughnut Muffins

Just a quick update tonight.... I am half asleep after a bad night of sleep last night, and a day of teaching puberty today, and I need to be ready for our field trip to Old Sturbridge Village tomorrow!  Ohhh end of the year craziness!

Today after work I made glazed doughnut muffins, and they were just as great as the last time I made them (which Mom claimed not to remember but .  I made them to celebrate Amanda's good news, and I brought them to her house tonight with Kenzie.  She texted me a video of Matty thoroughly enjoying one, so I was glad that I whipped them up! 

These are not only delicious, they are pretty quick to make.  I like when baked goods can be made in one bowl; there is no "cream the butter and sugar, then in a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients."  I could do it all in my gorgeous mixer.  The cinnamon and nutmeg spice the cake perfectly, and they rise higher than any other muffin or cupcake!  They have the most beautiful domed tops.  Then you make a quick glaze, dunk them in, and you have so-called "Krispy Kreme muffins."  I kept one to eat myself, and I am pretty pumped that I did.

Recipe:
glazed doughnut muffins