Corniest (Not so much) Corn Muffins

I made these, had a story to tell, and then never got around to it. Something about not doing so much and having lots of free time.

My apologies.

These corn muffins were great. The only thing I did was to omit the can of corn and throw in some shredded smoked cheddar cheese. YUM!


As you can see...I ate them warm with butter. Like there's any other way to eat them? I mean, COME ON!

Thank you Jill. Sorry I'm late. You can find Jill's muffins over at My Next Life and everyone else's here.

Thanks for stopping by.

And then I made these...

Ok, so...I skipped TWD this week. I'm sure you can guess as to the reason. Pots of dark chocolate and cream sitting in front of my two boys and me...my oldest looking at it and grimacing. (It's a texture thing.) My youngest looking at it and asking for leftover lasagna...and you know what would happen next. There would be 3 empty pots and only one dirty spoon. Yeah...not what I needed.

So...why not make cookies instead? That way I can spread the love. I started out just wanting chocolate chip cookies made from the ATC Baking Book. Then I saw the homemade marshmallows on the counter that needed to be used. Why not just chop them up add them to the cookies? And oh yeah, why not just brown the butter for the cookies before adding it to the dough...and forget the chips, let me just throw in semi-sweet chunks.

So these happened....

Really good, really gooey, really chocolaty.

You can go look at all of the other gorgeous Chocolate Pots de Creme here. And you can find the recipe on Christine's blog Black Cat Cooking.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Toasted Almond Scones

Ok, so my 9..almost 10 yr. old boy got an iPod Touch for an early birthday present. I made a rule that he can't download any app or game without asking me first. So now...every 15 minutes he's bugging me about a game or an app that farts at time-set intervals....or a DNA app that tells him he's only 30% related to himself. Don't get me wrong...I have a few games on my iPhone...Angry Birds just MIGHT be one of them...but I might just be re-thinking the rule I made when he got the thing.

Anyways...in between the asking and the farting...I made these scones. Triple the almonds with almond flour, almond extract and well...just almonds. These were a big hit with the younger boy. He doesn't have a huge sweet tooth like the older one and I do. These are perfect for him when he rolls out of bed 15 minutes before he's supposed to be at school. Grab and go...that's what it's all about around here.

Let me just tell you what I did. I toasted some slivered almonds to be used in the dough. I ALSO toasted some almond meal I had lurking in the freezer. I thought the toasting might bring out the flavor a little. Pretty sure it worked. I also upped the almond extract to a little more than 1/4 tsp. Sprinkle the tops with some turbinado sugar and you're good to go!

Ok...just a short post as I'm off to LAS VEGAS for a couple of days for the WPPI trade show. I am also going to meet KARI from RETRO BAKERY! I really can't wait. :) (You might remember how excited I got when my friend Michele brought me back some Retro cupcakes last year here.)

Thanks Mike who is over at LivingOutWest. He has the recipe posted on his page. Or better yet, go buy the book!

Have a look here to see what everyone else came up with.
Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

Let me just start off by saying....I took the easy way out.

I baked these in a 9" square dish and a loaf pan....kinda like really chocolaty oatmeal brownies...with some cinnamon poking through.

After making 80 rolled, cut and decorated sugar cookies and 3 dozen cupcakes over the weekend...I just didn't feel like scooping and baking an cooling any more cookies. So basically, I was being lazy, but I think it worked for me.

I made a full batch of these. Melted the butter, chocolate and brown sugar together with a little water thrown in. Mix in the eggs, one at a time then combine with the flour/cocoa mixture and stir in the oatmeal.


I had no problem with the chocolate and butter separating as some did. My mixture came together and stayed together just fine.

I dumped half into an ungreased 9" square pan and the other half into a loaf pan. I baked them like brownies. Meaning, still soft in the center. I cut them really small because the batter that I ate straight out of the bowl was super rich.

These are like little chocolate oatmeal cakes. I think I expected them to be fudgier with the way the batter was behaving. Pleasantly surprising...perfect when you need some chocolate and you need it right away. These will be in my freezer. :)

A big thanks to both Caroline and Claire from Bake with Us for choosing this week's TWD.

Check out what the other bakers came up with over at the TWD site.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Great Grains Muffins

"Nice job mom, this is one of the best things I ever ate."

So....I guess I'll be making these again.

My youngest wants more dried cranberries...the oldest, less. Either way, they both ate them for breakfast and anytime I can get both of them to like the same thing at 7:00am is a win in my book.

I had no cornmeal in the pantry.....what???.....so I just used additional whole wheat flour in place of the missing ingredient. I used the white whole wheat flour I found at Trader Joes and it seemed to do the trick.

No nuts of course, but dried cranberries. I think next time I'll try fresh blueberries. Actually, I think pretty much anything added in might just do the trick.

Ok, so I'm a day late...sorry about that. But I'm glad I baked these up...they obviously were a hit. So a big thank you to Christine from Happy Tummy. :)

Don't forget to have a look over here for these yummy muffins!

TWD: Nutty Chocolatey Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

Oh yum!

I'm just going to tell you straight up that I ate 4 pieces of this cake. Right after I cut it...and one right after another. No breaks in between. Then I had to stop myself because I needed something to take to the brunch I was headed to. As it was, I showed up with pretty much half a cake. I really don't think anyone noticed. :)

A lot of bakers had problems with the cake sticking to the bundt pan. I super-sprayed mine with Baker's Joy and kept the filling away from the sides. No problem with sticking. Mine came out intact.

I also had to kind of use my fingers to spread the batter over the filling at the end. I didn't want the fall out some had a problem with, It seemed to work. Nothing came out when I unmolded.

The one substitution I made was to use lemon zest instead of orange zest. Simply because I had lemons in the house. And oh yeah, left the raisins out of the swirl....that just didn't seem right.

And I got to use nuts in the filling!!! Since this cake was destined to be consumed outside my home...I was able to use nuts. And I used pecans. So the combination of pecans, cinnamon, mini chocolate chips and fresh nutmeg....made for a tasty swirl.

A big thank you to Jennifer over at Cooking for Comfort for choosing this week's TWD.

Don't forget to have a look over here for the rest of the bakers' beautiful cakes.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

Let's make this short and sweet.

Betsy from A Cup of Sweetness chose this week's TWD.

I have so many lemons....I don't know what to do with them all. I have a lemon tree in my yard...friends drop big bags of lemons at my front door...my parents bring them to me...This recipe helped out a little. :)

I substituted nonfat Greek yogurt for the sour cream because that's what I had in the fridge. I also left off the glaze because I'm keeping them in the freezer. At least one of my boys likes to eat these for breakfast so he'll be in muffins for days.

Bright and lemony with a crunch of poppyseeds. Very nice.

Don't forget to stop by the TWD website to catch up with the other bakers.

Thanks for stopping by.