Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I made this pumpkin bread for a potluck we had at work the other day. I originally made some Old World Butter Horns from Cook's Country, but they came out so ugly (cannot post such ugly cookies, even though they are delicious!) that I had to scramble to make something else!!! This came together in no time so it was perfect!

This recipe comes from Extreme Dinner Makeover. This recipe is supposedly a copycat recipe for the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread at Great Harvest. I haven't had their pumpkin bread in a long time, so I can't say for sure if it's a good copycat recipe or not. I can tell you that it's a good recipe for Pumpkin Bread.

I made them into muffins instead of the original loaf because I was pressed for time. It made about 30 muffins!!! I also decreased the amount of sugar and thought the muffins didn't suffer from it. Here's the recipe. Enjoy!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from Extreme Dinner Makeover

2 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups sugar (see note)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
16 oz cooked or canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 cup oil
4 eggs, beaten lightly
2/3 cup water
1 cup semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips (see note)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare three 12 count muffin tins. (see note)

2. Mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together in a large bowl; set aside.

3. Mix pumpkin, oil, eggs, and 2/3 cup water together. Stir into dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips. Place batter in prepared pans.

4. Bake 18-23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Note:

• *Original recipe calls for 3 cups of sugar. I only used 2 cups and I thought it was sweet enough.
• *I used Ghiradelli's semi-sweet chocolate chips, but they are a little larger than normal chocolate chips so it wasn't as evenly dispersed as I would have liked. I would suggest using smaller chocolate chips so you get a bit of chocolate in every bite!! =)
• *I made about 30 muffins, I baked the first batch with two 12 count muffin tins. The second batch I filled six of the muffin tins with the batter
  and filled the rest with water so that they would bake evenly.

Crunchy banana muffin

I'm so happy to be baking again. I've been doing so much cooking that my baking has been neglected. As much I enjoy cooking and experimenting with different ingredients, I enjoy baking a lot more.

Mr. G's mom gave us about 30 apple bananas and although I love apple bananas, I could only eat so much. I decided to make some banana muffins for Mr. G's coworkers. I had problems deciding which recipe to use. I thought about making Cook's illustrated recent Ultimate Banana bread recipe, but it was too much work for the time that I had. I was also planning to use CI's recipe for best banana bread, but I didn't have any plain yogurt and I was too lazy to go to the store. Finally, I decided to go with Ina Garten's Crunchy Banana muffins. It got great reviews and I've never been disappointed by Ina yet..so here goes!!

The result is very yummy banana muffins. They were not as crunchy as I thought they would be, but I did like the bits of granola in it. If you love the banana muffins that are super moist, this is not that type of banana bread. I actually like this better than the oiliness of some of the other banana muffins. I also like how in Ina's recipe, she didn't mash all the bananas, so you get little bits of banana throughout the muffin. It's a nice touch I think!! I will definite try the CI one next time..I hear the banana tree is bearing more fruit. yikes!! Do you have any banana recipes to share?

Crunchy banana muffin
adapted from Ina Garten

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar (see note)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 extra-large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 bananas)
1 cup medium-diced ripe bananas (1 banana)
1 cup small-diced walnuts
1 cup granola
Dried banana chips, granola, or shredded coconut, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Line 18 large muffin cups with paper liners. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the melted butter and blend. Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla, and mashed bananas, and add them to the flour-and-butter mixture. Scrape the bowl and blend well. Don't overmix.

3. Fold the diced bananas, walnuts, and granola into the batter. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each 1 to the top. Top each muffin with dried banana chips, granola, or coconut, if desired. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from the pan, and serve.

Note:

• * The original recipe uses 2 cups of sugar, I cut it down to 1 1/2 cups and I thought it was sweet enough.
• * The original recipe adds an additional 1 cup of sweetened coconut flakes. I didn't have any on hand so I omitted it. If you want to add the coconut, you can add it with the granola.
  

Amish friendship bread

My coworker gave me a very special gift about 10 days ago. I would like to call it the baking chain letter, aka Amish friendship bread. Okay, let me explain. She gave me some Amish friendship bread in both vanilla and chocolate flavor. She also gave me a bag of starter. Apparently, the original starter comes from an Amish person. Every time you go through the process of making the bread, you get four other starters that you pass on to your friends.

I am very skeptical of the fact that only an Amish person can make the starter. So I did a little research via my favorite search engine for recipes, Food Blog Search from Google. I came across the recipe for the starter from Culinary Adventures of a New Wife. So if you're not one of the lucky four people that receive my starter, you can make it for yourself.

The results? It is very moist and very tasty. Make it yourself and make some friends. Instead of making the original cinnamon variety, I found a Lemon poppy seed version from a Taste of Home forum from Jenita. The cake came out really moist and full of lemony flavor. Here's the recipe.

Lemon poppyseed Amish Friendship bread
from Jenita at Taste of Home
makes 1 loaf

1/4 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup Amish starter
1 egg
1 pkg (3.4 oz) instant lemon pudding
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the lemon pudding, poppy seed, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and flour together.

2. In another bowl, mix together the oil, vanilla, applesauce, milk, Amish starter, and egg together.

3. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and combine until smooth. Pour into greased loaf pan lined with wax paper. Bake about 45 minutes.

Note:

• *For some reason, you're not supposed to use a metal bowl or any metal things to mix the bread.
  

Strawberry muffins

I am in love with my muffin tin..it's as if all of a sudden, I realize what a great baking tool the muffin tin is. Since then, I want to use it all the time. It's great clean up. It's also wonderful when your baked goods is in these small portions and you can just grab, eat and go. So now I'm trying to think of what else I can make in my muffin tin. heehee =P

Anyway..onto these wonderful Strawberry muffins. These muffins are adapted from the Blueberry muffins from the New Best Recipe by the wonderful folks at Cook's illustrated. I used strawberries instead because I didn't have any blueberries on hand. They turned out wonderful!! They are so perfectly moist and the sour cream in the muffins made them taste like strawberry cream cheese muffins. yum-ME! Here's the recipe.

Strawberry Muffins
adapted from The New Best Recipe
total time: 1 hour

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 large egg
1 cup granulated sugar (7 ounces)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/4 cups sour cream (10 ounces)
1 1/2 cups strawberries

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick vegetable cooking spray.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl until combined. Whisk egg in second medium bowl until well-combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds. Add sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogenous, about 30 seconds; add melted butter in 2 or 3 steps, whisking to combine after each addition. Add sour cream in 2 steps, whisking just to combine.

3. Add frozen berries to dry ingredients and gently toss to combine. Add sour cream mixture and fold with rubber spatula until batter comes together and berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds (small spots of flour may remain and batter will be thick). Do not overmix.

4. Use ice cream scoop or large spoon to drop batter into greased muffin tin. Bake until light golden brown and toothpick or skewer inserted into center of muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating pan from front to back halfway through baking time. Invert muffins onto wire rack, stand muffins upright, and cool 5 minutes.
Notes:

• The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. I lowered it to 3/4 cups of sugar. I thought it was sweet enough...but you might want to put the whole cup of sugar if you like things sweeter.
  

Chocolate chocolate chunk muffins

A friend of mine had a little get together at her house...sort of like a tupperware party, but only better because it was clothes. The company is called Jessica's traveling boutique. It was so much fun having her at my friend's house. There were only a few of us, so we could really take our time browsing, and of course Jessica is so nice!!! If you're in Hawaii, I highly recommend throwing a party with Jessica.

Anyway...on to the food, this is what I brought to the get together. I wanted something kind of brunch-y. So I decided to make this Chocolate chocolate chunk muffins from Annie Eats. I think the recipe is actually originally from Baking from my home to yours.

I thought the muffins were just okay...it definitely did not have a wow factor. It's not very sweet and there's not enough chocolate flavor. If I were to make these again, I would definitely up the melted chocolate. Anyway, here's the recipe.

Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Annie’s eats
total time: one hour

3/4 stick (6 tbsp.) unsalted butter
4-6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Set aside.

2. Melt the butter and 2 oz. of the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; or do this in a microwave. Remove from the heat.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined. Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – a few lumps are better than overmixing the batter. Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

4. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.