Recipe Update: Cranberry Nut Muffins

It's a new year. 

2014. 

I often think of the new year as a time for updates. A time for fine-tuning what's already in place. A time for little tweaks that help perfect what's already going well.

This recipe has always been one of our family favorites, and this year, I felt that it needed a new year's update.  

I made the flavors more vibrant by adding freshly-grated nutmeg, fresh-squeezed orange juice and even more grated orange zest. I brought out the nuttiness by toasting the walnuts before chopping them up and throwing them in. I substituted half of the flour for whole wheat flour to make the muffins a bit healthier. 

Here's to a fabulous new year! 

Zucchini Carrot Coconut Cream Cheese Muffins

Blue Sky Bakery has me spoiled. I used to think a really great muffin could be just one flavor.

Blueberry. Pumpkin. Lemon. Chocolate. Chocolate chip.

Not anymore.

Every Blue Sky muffin has at least three different components to it. On any given day, they'll have blueberry-pineapple bran muffins, pumpkin-apple walnut muffins, and chocolate chip, peach and raspberry muffins, to name just a few favors I've seen (and tried).

They're unique and complex, and they're certainly worth the lines on the weekends. The only downside is, they don't open until after I'm at work on weekdays.

So I had to attempt a muffin of my own that Blue Sky would be proud of.

Here it is: a zucchini and carrot muffin, stuffed with barely sweetened cream cheese and topped with toasted coconut flakes.

Every bite has something a little different to it, either with taste or with texture, and I think the appearance is just delightful.

Best of all, I froze all of these muffins after baking them, and they reheat in the microwave in about 45 seconds. That means they fit into my breakfast schedule.

Carrot Cake Muffins

Easter has got to be one of my favorite holidays.

I mean, you wake up in the morning and get to hunt for a whole basket of chocolate and treats that's just for you to enjoy.

Dark chocolate bunnies. Cadbury mini eggs. Coconut nests. Jelly beans.

And the list goes on. Everyone has their preferences.

As a kid, I was in heaven. I could sneak off to my Easter basket whenever I wanted and dig in.

I just had to use a little moderation because I knew I had to have room for a sweet-filled Easter brunch.

That's where muffins like these come in. I love carrot cake with Easter brunch, but when you add in cream cheese danishes and chocolate croissants it gets to be a bit much for one day.

These muffins have almost everything I love in carrot cake (minus the cream cheese icing and some of the sweetness), but they're much healthier. They're loaded with carrots and walnuts. They're absolutely divine warm.

If you serve these for Easter brunch, your guests will still have room for dessert. If you make them just for yourself, you'll be extra delighted. These freeze incredibly well and are easy to reheat in the mornings for breakfast.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I'm reading Julie Diamond's book Kindergarten: A Teacher, Her Students, and a Year of Learning. It's a beautiful account of Diamond's career as an early childhood teacher. It's the kind of work I hope to one day create. The book follows the structure of the typical school year, from the setup of the classroom and building of routines in September to the growth teachers celebrate in students as the year continues.

While reading the book, I'm particularly struck by the depth with which she knows her students, by her ability to recognize their small successes as evidence of deeper growth and understanding. She celebrates children who begin the year drawing house after house in writing, and who slowly start to see that they can use their pictures to tell stories.

Recently, Julie's class hit mid-winter, and while the doldrums set in, the students also began to take more initiative and sustain inquiries in ways they were not yet capable of in early fall. They worked for days on single block projects. They found the materials they needed and started composing their own books. They worked with purpose and enthusiasm.

When I started this blog, most of my recipes read adapted (slightly) or taken from. I felt most at home following recipes, enjoyed the process of replicating something and having it turn out just the way I intended.

Somewhere along the process, though, I started taking more chances. They were small at first. I used dark brown sugar instead of light brown to create my own version of Joy the Baker's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I added berbere to these Robert Linxe truffles so they better fit the theme of my meal. I realized I loved the taste of browned butter (where had it been all my life?), and I started working it into everything I did, like this strawberry-rhubarb crisp.

I'm enjoying the exploration, the time to play freely in my kitchen without the stress about whether what I create will turn out, but with a wealth of prior experiences with ingredients to draw on. Like Diamond's kindergartners, I can't wait to see where this journey takes me.

Today I'm linking up with Di's Kitchen Notebook for a special Citrus event! Visit Di's blog to view all the different citrus recipes being blogged about today!  

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Walking into Blue Sky Bakery on the weekends is always a treat. I say weekends because they don't open early enough on weekdays for me to make it there before work. That's probably a good thing.

You go to Blue Sky for the muffins. For $2.25, you get your choice of fresh-baked muffins. Pumpkin apple walnut. Zucchini raspberry chocolate. Mango blueberry. Triple berry bran. Pineapple coconut cream cheese. The New York Times describes them as having a ray of sunshine in every bite.

And the list goes on. Nearly every time I visit, they've got a new muffin in the rotation.

Without question, my favorite muffin they offer is the pumpkin muffin filled with chocolate chips and cream cheese. When you order it warm, the cream cheese is still soft, and your teeth sink right through it. The cream cheese is unsweetened, which makes it a perfect contrast to the bits of bittersweet chocolate filling the muffin.

Here's my attempt at recreating their muffin (and giving you the chance to try them if you don't happen to live within walking distance). They're a bit smaller than the true Blue Sky muffins, due to the capacity of my muffin tin, so I couldn't squeeze quite as much cream cheese inside as I would have liked. If your muffin tin is larger, go crazy with the cream cheese. It's hard to have too much.

True to the Blue Sky style, I left my muffins wrapper free. They just look a bit more natural that way.

Christmas and Cranberry Nut Muffins

It's (finally) beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. There's snow outside, for the first time since Halloween. I'm at my parents' house where there is a real, live, fully decorated Christmas tree and little bits of Christmas tucked everywhere. My Christmas presents are finally all purchased and wrapped. There's been Christmas music on all day, and we're headed to our family's annual Christmas Eve party in just a few minutes.

It's about time. Despite how long stores have been selling Christmas for, it took me much longer to really feel it this year.

These muffins, though, always make me feel festive. Unlike some muffins, with just a few mix-ins, these are just filled with goodies. You'll get cranberries and walnuts in every bite. There's just the right amount of sweet and tangy in each muffin.

I hope your Christmases are merry and bright!

Baked Sunday Mornings: Honey Corn Muffins

Sometimes I'm tempted to alter a recipe the first time I make it. When I made these Honey Corn Muffins from Baked Explorations, I first considered adding fresh kernels of corn. I thought about adding some spice to the muffins, a bit of cayenne or tabasco. I thought about baking the muffins into a loaf of bread.

But after sinking my teeth into the first warm muffin, topped with melting butter, I was glad I hadn't altered anything. Matt and Renato were right. These muffins had just the right amount of sweetness, contributed by a bit of honey. They didn't need anything else.

These were far better than the Jiffy corn muffin mixes I used to buy as a kid, and they weren't much more difficult. I whipped up a quick batch of buttermilk using 1 cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. I had the rest of the ingredients on hand, and they came together quickly.

I enjoyed some fresh, and I also froze a few to have on hand for dinners. I'm glad I have a few left because I came across a delicious suggestion to top the reheated muffins with honey butter--yum!

Be sure to check out the Baked Sunday Mornings Facebook page to see posts by all the bloggers who made muffins this week. If you want to join us, pick up a copy of Baked Explorations and check out the recipe schedule here. The next recipe is an oatmeal chocolate chip breakfast CAKE.