Muffin Overload

True to form, it is 7:06pm EST on December 31, 2012 and I am furiously sprinting to finish all of my intended posts before 2013 begins... on the East coast of the continental USA, to be very specific.

Back in August 2012 I went on a muffin kick.  The culprit of this obsession was, no doubt, Pinterest.  I browse Pinterest when I am at work waiting for something to finish, or when I am sick of reading journal articles, or when I come back early from lunch and everyone else is still eating... Anyhow, I saw a few recipes for muffins and decided it was easy enough for me to try - my #1 criteria for recipes is that they have to be simple both in ingredients and directions. 

The first set was strawberry banana yogurt bread from fromthelittleyellowkitchen.  

Ingredients:

-2 cups flour

-1/4 cup sugar

-2 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1/4 cup butter (I used 2 TBSP)

-3 extra-ripe bananas

-1egg

-1/2 cup greek yogurt

-2 tsp vanilla extract

-1 cup diced srawberries (tossed with a bit of flour to prevent sinking)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin pan

2. Combine wet ingredients separately, combine dry ingredients separately. Combine wet and dry ingredients together.

3. Fold in strawberries.

4. Bake for ~40 minutes until golden brown.

I also stumbled on another muffin recipe with Nutella, and I was all over that like a spider monkey on a banana tree.  The original website was chef-in-training.com.

Ingredients:
-1.5 cups flour
-1 cup sugar (I omitted this because Nutella is enough sweetness)
-1/2 tsp baking soda (what's the difference between this and baking powder??)
-3/4 cup shortening (I used ~2 TBSP melted butter)
-2 ripe bananas
-1 egg
-NUTELLA (as much as you want)

Once you figure out what to do for one muffin mix, it's pretty much the same for all muffins.  The only variation is in the ingredients.  For these Nutella muffins, though, take a butter knife and slice in the chocolatey goodness once you've poured the muffin mix into the pan.  This makes pretty swirls and keeps them from turning muddied, although they'd probably taste all the same in the end.

I also tried my hand at some savory muffins, but these didn't go over well, even H - the man who eats anything - declined them after one bite.  For these I cheated and used Bisquick mix, layered with some sausage egg and cheese.  It seemed foolproof, but these muffins were dry like the Sahara... perhaps I will rework them in the future.

Blueberry muffins straight from the oven

Butta my muffin!