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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Streusel Coffee Cake Muffins

So... I have an awful confession to make.  I bake out of a box.  Let me explain- I don't know how to bake, and I don't want to waste the time and ingredients, when there's a chance that it won't turn out right.  But, when you use a box, it always comes out perfect, and I always have everything I need for it.

Not today.  Dan and I were having friends over (why do we always try new things when people will be there to witness it?), and I have been craving coffee cake REALLY BADLY.  And naturally, they HAD to be individual serving sizes- hence the muffinness. :)

So I went on a search for a yummy coffee cake recipe.  Obviously, I turned to pinterest.com.  If you haven't yet discovered this gem of a website, stop reading this (you won't hurt my feelings), and go request an invite.  NOW!  Okay, so I found this recipe from marthastewart.com.  You can't get much better than Martha.  So this one is at marthastewart.com/coffee-cake-muffins.  Based on the comments, I doubled the cinnamon for the streusel, and I didn't have jumbo muffin pans, so I made regular ones, and baked them for 20 minutes.  It made 15 of them.

So these are them:

  I'm a little partial, but I think mine actually look better than Martha's.  :)

Ingredients

  • For The Muffins

    • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
    • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1 teaspoon baking soda
    • 1 cup sour cream
    • 1 cup granulated sugar
    • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
    • 2 large eggs
  • For The Streusel Topping

    • 1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
    • 1 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

  1. Prepare streusel topping: In a medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, and salt. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles large coarse crumbs; refrigerate until ready to use.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffins: Place cupcake liners in pan. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
  3. Using a hand-held mixer on medium speed, beat together butter, sour cream, granulated sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. With mixer on low, beat flour mixture into butter mixture.
  4. Divide half the batter among prepared muffin cups. Top with half the streusel mixture, then remaining batter, and top with streusel. Bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
I was so excited, they came out beautifully!  Very moist, very yummy, the right amount of sweet... perfect!  I think next time I'll top it off with a little more streusel, for that added crunch (I had A LOT of streusel left over).  Very good experience for a first from scratch baking attempt.  Write about them is making me want one.  I think I'll go get one.  Trust me, you want one, go make them! :)


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Post-Valentine's Day Sugar High

Valentine's Day is baker and crafter heaven.  At least for me it is.  It's when you get to get away with drawing hearts on things, using glitter paint and bake pink monstrosities. :)
The only baking I really did this season was making cake pops with our wonderful youth group girls.  We're always coming up with new ways to raise funds for our youth group.  We decided to make cake pop "bouquets".  Each of these bouquets consisted of three cake pops.  Red velvet and strawberry cake with chocolate and vanilla candy coating- yumm.
These are our awesome girls.  Those were so scrumptious!
For Valentine's Day my mom sent us a dozen Georgetown Cupcake cupcakes.  They are who we used for our wedding, and they're simply the best!
Because my parents live so far away, and don't get experience these things with us, We set up our camera to take multiple shots, so they could see us opening the box of cupcakes.  I love that my husband supports these kinds of crazy ideas. :)



We love these cupcakes so much!  We were super excited.




We got the Valentine's Day dozen.  They were so amazing!

This is what my night looked like: Cupcakes and Roman Holiday.  Pretty awesome Valentine's Day!


There are not too many words to describe how yummy this Strawberry Lava Fudge one is!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day, no matter how or who you spent it with!
Keep the love and cupcakes flowing!