Mini pumpkin muffins }{ recipe

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This week has been busy with preparations for our family's Thanksgiving meal. Today we set the table and I baked mini pumpkin muffins. Each of us will be bringing three dishes, and I figured I would get a head start on mine now.

Tomorrow there will be so much cooking, talking, drinking, and making merry, that I know I won't have time for blogging. So I wanted to share this awesome little recipe with you tonight. It's delicious and it comes in bite sized pieces for less guilt. Well, that word shouldn't be allowed on Thanksgiving at all anyway.

The original recipe is found here: Allrecipes' pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I doubled the recipe and made half with raisins, and the other with peanut butter chips instead of chocolate (as per a family member's request)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cup of apple sauce
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups of canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup of water
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter chips

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400F and grease or line a pan of 24 mini muffins
2. Mix the sugar, apple sauce, and eggs.
3. Add the canned pumpkin and the water and mix.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then combine them with the pumpkin mixture.
5. Divide the batter however you like and add the raisins and chips. My family wanted more peanut butter chips, so I divided the batter into approximately thirds and added the raisins to 1/3 and peanut butter chips to the other 2/3.
6. Spoon the batter in the liners/greased pan and bake for about 15-17 minutes. Repeat until you use all the batter. We got 60 mini muffins today with these measurements.

I set them on a platter, but somehow the mini muffins seem to be disappearing...

Apple banana muffins for breakfast

Ever wake up craving for some freshly baked muffins? Maybe it's the pregnancy, I'm not sure, but this morning I just needed to bake some muffins.

The original recipe came from here, but I did modify it. I wanted to share with you right away, because it came out so delicious! The original recipe was for banana and nuts, but N. is not a fan of nuts at all. So that had to come out. I also wanted to change some things around to try and get some extra yumminess in there. So, here's the end result. If you do try it, let me know how you like it.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cups of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of low fat milk
• 1/4 apple sauce
• 3/4 cup mashed bananas (about 2 long bananas)
• 1/2 cup of an apple, peeled and diced
• a pinch of cinnamon and brown sugar

Steps:

1. Grease a muffin pan and preheat the oven to 400 F
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.
3. In a different bowl, combine the egg, milk, apple sauce, and bananas into the flour mixture. Mix the batter up just until moist, but still lumpy, then add the diced apple. 
4. Pour into the greased muffin cups (2/3 full) then add an apple slice (or smaller piece) on top, then sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. 
5. Bake for 18-20 minutes (or until it passes the toothpick test!). Cool and eat. 

Well, try to let it cool. We couldn't even wait 5 minutes, they smelled so wonderful. They tasted just as good too.

What do you crave for breakfast?

Project done but...

It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it. Take a look:

The eyes are uneven... So is the mouth and the nose. But it gets worse.

See the bumps? The arms? Poor thing. She suffered from my hurriedness. But you know what? I still like her, with all her imperfections (she's the first doll I've ever sewed).

Now on to tastier subjects. I baked some banana apple muffins yesterday, in the shape of hearts. My daughter helped me frost them, posed them for the picture, and only then bit into it. I was so impressed with her self-restraint! But now every time she eats a muffin she asks me to take a picture. Who am I to say no.

What have you cooked up lately? And any advice for my future dolls?