The other day I was flipping through a cookbook that focuses on what to do with seasonal produce, probably trying to find something to do with an influx of summer squash. Because I’m easily distracted (believe it!), I found myself instead staring at a recipe for blueberry sage muffins. At first I was quizzical, head tilted to the side like that little RCA dog. But as I thought about it more, I realized that those flavors would actually go together beautifully. Yay! Off to the oven I went.
A few weeks ago I found a recipe for apple cheddar muffins that looked fairly promising, but ended up falling flat. Way too much baking powder, really bland apples, and you could barely tell there was cheese involved. I knew they had potential, I just had to figure out what their secret desire was. What did these muffins want to *be* when they grew up? Read the rest of this entry ?
I just realized that the virtual oven has been quiet this week, as the real oven has been in overdrive. Lots of baking has been going on, and most of it wasn’t quick bread or muffin related, so will have to wait for another month. In the midst of it all, however, I took an evening to make three dozen Chocolate Breakfast Muffins from one of my favorite recipe sources, mail order catalogs, and retail stores – King Arthur Flour. These muffins are incredible. Little handfuls of amazingly chocolately goodness, so compelling that you want to open up the oven and lick the piping-hot batter while they bake, because you can’t possibly wait another minute to taste them. Seriously, they’re THAT good. Read the rest of this entry ?
Have you ever opened the mailbox to find a packet of unsolicited recipe cards peeking out? Usually they’re a teaser, trying to convince you to subscribe! now! and you’ll get a packet every month for the rest of forever (for a low, low price, of course). We tend to get these every few months, and like to poke through the recipes before throwing them out. Recently, one of the cards promised the ‘Best-Ever’ muffins. The base recipe looked promising, but not quite what I was looking for. Not being in a blueberry mood, I decided to make them with cranberries. Not too shabby!
Last night, I decided to make them again, but was bored with the plain berry approach. What the heck could I do to them to make them more interesting? Hmmm…walnuts! Cranberry walnut muffins sounded comforting and delicious. I estimated the quantity of nuts, whipped up a double batch, sprinkled some coarse sparkling sugar on top, and threw them in the oven.
When they came out, I was devastated. They were darker than I wanted, probably due to using metal pans with muffin papers, rather than the silicone pan (without papers) that I had used the first time. The walnuts were overwhelming, making the whole thing taste like tree bark. I thought they were awful.
We had differing opinions on what to do next. I wanted to trash them, modify the recipe some more, and not post a peep about it until I had a successful result. Mrslovey was of the mind that I should still write a post, describe the fail, and then re-post a revised recipe later on, once I had it nailed down. I just didn’t know what to do.
So I did what anyone would do, I ignored the muffins and started poking around online. Ran into friend L, and started talking about my muffin frustrations, and how I was torn between wanting to get a post out and wanting to have a ‘perfect’ recipe. L reminded me that even if you don’t get the results you want, it can still be a learning experience. I left the conversation feeling better about things, and decided to take the muffins to work to get feedback from a larger sampling of tasters.
Boyhowdy, did I ever get feedback – they loved them! According to my coworkers, the muffins were moist, the sugar gave a nice crunch, and the cranberry/walnut combo worked to keep them from being overly sweet. Seems the amount of walnuts was exactly right. So I guess the lesson learned is this: sometimes, you just need to step away for a moment, have a little faith in your abilities, and taste the muffins again in the morning.
loveysoven 