Easy to whip together and perfect for breakfast.
Chocolate
Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins
Light orange, sweet chocolate, and a splash of vanilla make for a breakfast you can look forward to.
Cinnamon-Coconut Cookies with Orchidea Chips: Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2014
The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2104 inspired these Cinnamon-Coconut Cookies with Orchidea Chips. Plus cookies! In the mail!
Round-up: A Quartet of Pumpkin Recipes
It’s a pumpkin round-up! Muffins, cupcakes, cookies, and the perfect Thanksgiving cheesecake.
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
These banana chocolate chip muffins were worth the oven confusion.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
These gems popped into my Facebook feed on just the right day.
The Perils of Bloggery, and a Recipe Round-up
Apologies galore, and a recipe round-up to make up for lost time.
Chocolate Cupcake-Muffins
Why are these called Chocolate Cupcake-Muffins? Because they are muffins, and they are cupcakes, and they are delicious. They can be eaten for breakfast or for dessert. They can be eaten plain, or with peanut butter, or with whipped cream frosting. They are made with healthy ingredients like quinoa flour and yogurt, but also required the melting of butter and the adding of cocoa powder. Hence: cupcake-muffins.
Mini Chocolate Doughnut Muffins
Mini Chocolate Doughnut Muffins for a snow day, that’s what these were. The kids went back to school on January 2nd, and by the 3rd they already had a day off, thanks to an insane amount of snow. We seized the moment, slept in, and then it was time for breakfast. I decided to skip the glaze so these not-unhealthy treats wouldn’t venture into dessert territory.
Chocolate Coconut Espresso Cookies (with Cappuccino Chips)
These weren’t JUST particularly spectacular cookies.
Yes, being Chocolate Coconut Espresso Cookies, they were destined to be delicious, and when I swapped out the chocolate chips for cappuccino chips they went all the way to sublime. But these were special cookies — not in an afterschool special kind of way — because I made them for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap
Dark Chocolate Espresso Pumpkin Bread, and guest bakers!
It was a beautiful, perfect, delicious bread, and a perfectly wonderful baking day. I had guest bakers! Meet Tracy and Antonia. Left to my own devices, I would have reduced or eliminated the chocolate chips, but Antonia & Tracy are huge chocolate fans and I wanted them to leave with their taste buds singing.
Banana Bran Muffins with Mini Chocolate Chips
These were a lovely surprise.
I hadn’t done a banana-bran combination before. Well, sort of. I’d tried these Banana-Nut Oat Bran Muffins but that was oat bran instead of wheat bran and they didn’t have real flour in them and while some people liked them, I wouldn’t make them again. So they don’t count.
But I had some brown bananas sitting around, even after making my Chai Spiced Banana Muffins, and I had a hankering for something new. I also had some buttermilk to use up, and liked that this recipe looked pretty healthy but still adaptable, plus it looked like I’d get some mini muffins out of the deal as well, which are always fun.
Almond Butter Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
My mission: almond butter.
Why? Because my friend (and former co-worker) Tracy wanted something with almond butter, and she waited patiently week after week as I churned out muffin after muffin, loaf after loaf, all almond butter-free. Tracy has been the most loyal of baking fans and makes me feel like everything that comes out of my kitchen is a gift, so when I saw this recipe for Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips, I fought my peanut butter-loving instincts and decided to make the swap and grant my chocolate-and-pumpkin-loving friend her much-deserved wish.
Orange Mocha Muffins
Redemption.
The last two baked goods that came out of my kitchen were substandard, for sure. Not enough flavor, heavy, arduous texture, and especially disappointing because one came right on the heels of the other. But today things turned around at last, courtesy of these lovely. fluffy, flavor-filled orange mocha muffins.
Healthy Dark Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
This recipe called out to me but it took a while for me to heed the call.
First of all, it was based on a recipe by Marcus Samuelsson, whose memoir Yes, Chef was a recent and engaging, fascinating, inspiring, and delicious read. I’ve never tried any of his recipes before, and I had actually pinned this one a few weeks ago. But then I saw this version of it, which seemed to preserve the general nature of it but healthed it up a bit, finding alternatives to the sugar (which I would simply have reduced) as well as the oil.
Zucchini Chocolate Coconut Muffins
Pretty, they’re not.
Delicious, they are. And then some. They’re bursting with chocolate and coconut with just a touch of cinnamon, and not a whisper of zucchini hits the taste buds. Amazing.
I confess that I was very, very nervous while I was making them. I changed so many elements of this recipe that I had no idea if I was going to be elated by success or depressed by failure, and then have to go hungry as well. But sometimes a baker has to take a few chances.
Skinny Chocolate Fudge Banana Muffins
Ignore the word “skinny”. Really. Because these taste anything but skinny. They taste FAT in the most delightful way. Fat with chocolate flavor. Fat with cakey texture. Fat with desserty joy.
And yet they are skinny too. Low fat, Weight Watchers-friendly, and full of healthy ingredients like wheat germ, yogurt, bananas, and whole wheat white flour. They have chocolate chips too, of course, but that’s okay. It’s all about balance. And deliciousness. These muffins have that in abundance.
Zucchini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
jump to recipe Everyone loved these. I thought they were just okay, but everyone I work with went nuts for them and kept coming back to ask if there were any left long after the last one had disappeared. So I’d consider that a hit. And they’re awfully good for you. They started with zucchini. […]
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread (two misses and a hit)
Finally!
This delicious, satisfying chocolate zucchini bread came on the heels of two very unfortunate baking experiments, and a last-minute mishap to boot.
Failure #1: I tried to make a zucchini bread without chocolate chips or cocoa powder. Now I know that it’s possible to make a good spiced zucchini bread, but the recipe I tried did not generate one.
Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins
These muffins are wonderful. The amount of chocolate chips was just right, the sweetness balanced beautifully with the spices, the crumb was soft and fluffy, and the zucchini provided moisture and nutrition without ever rearing its ugly head into the flavor. A gem, this one. I feel like these muffins are helping me slowly inch towards a zucchini bread without cocoa powder. Perhaps I am beginning to understand the powers of the humble zucchini
Healthy Chocolate Zucchini Cake
It’s zucchini season! And that means it’s chocolate season too. (It’s not wabbit season, though.)
I’ve had my eye on this healthy chocolate zucchini cake recipe for a while because it has cardamom in it, which piqued my interest. So I gave it a go.
Buttermilk Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins
Flower muffin! I was out of breakfast muffins and needed to whip something together that looked easy and quick, and this fit the bill: Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins. The chocolate chips came from me. First I had to soak the oats in buttermilk for half an hour, which gave me enough time to clear some more […]
Mini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I thought I had the banana muffin market cornered, but these are just as good as mine and come in mini form! The recipe for these mini banana chocolate chip muffins had unusual instructions, and specific directions, and I obeyed all with success. I changed a few things in the recipe, and got great results: a moist, flavorful, fun mini muffin, popular with all who tasted.
Double Chocolate Chip Muffins (“Skinny”!)
I have tasted the magnificence that is a “skinny” double chocolate chip muffin, and I’ve personally witnessed all the ingredients that went into them. I alone can vouch for the seemingly impossible truth: these healthy muffins taste like decadent brownies. For real. And I’ve already made them twice, so I know it wasn’t just a fluke.
Chocolate and Cinnamon Chip Espresso Oat Muffins
jump to recipe I won’t pretend they’re pretty, but they sure are delicious. This is a grown-up sort of muffin. The espresso flavor is strong, the oats give the muffins a density that makes them nice and filling, and the only real sweetness comes from the chips. So don’t make these for kids and expect […]
Banutter Bites
jump to recipe I invented these. I had some overripe bananas, which I had to protect with a label or our cleaning lady would have thrown them away: I also had an itch to do something new, a craving for peanut butter (which is really just status quo around here, “around here” being inside my […]
Cocoa Banana Yogurt Muffins (a Laurie original)
jump to recipe Yesterday, I played with my tried-and-true banana yogurt muffin recipe to see if I could add in some cocoa powder without ruining it. I’ve also been playing with my camera. My photography class started yesterday, and I got cocky and started shooting on manual, which turned out to be something of a […]
Malted Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
I’ve made these before — they’re Dave’s favorites. But I made them again, with some small alterations, because the kids have both just had ear infections and they felt these would help. And why not? The tricky part, though, is that Juliet doesn’t really like chocolate chips. She likes chocolate kisses, or chocolate that comes […]
Peanut Butter Pound Cake
This was my birthday cake. This was one of the most decadent things I’ve ever made. This was also the best cake I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. I may have to make it again next year. It started with two sticks of butter. Then, the first two cups of sugar. (The first two, […]
Salted Espresso Oatmeal Cookies
I’ve made these before, but this time I added a twist. I made them at Christmas, and instead of using regular chocolate chips I used Christmas-colored red & green chips, but this time I really took these to another level flavor-wise by substituting half of the chocolate chips for cappuccino chips, freshly arrived from the […]
Greek Yogurt and Coffee Chocolate Chip Muffins
jump to recipe These are insane. Now they’re not crazily low fat or anything, but they’re not anywhere near as decadent as they taste, and the flavor combination in these muffins is absolutely exquisite. Semi-sweet chocolate, turbinado sugar, espresso powder, and a hint of orange come together to create some sort of flavor perfection that […]
Double Chocolate Yogurt Loaf
jump to recipe Let me just put this out there right away: this picture does not do this loaf justice. The how-to-use-your-new-DSL-camera class doesn’t start until April, so I’m still using the automatic setting, and I baked at night, so there was no natural light to work with. So understand that the dark blob you […]
Banana Nutella Muffins — an original
jump to recipe I had two overripe bananas, a jar of Nutella, some peanut butter, and an urge to combine them all. I combed Pinterest and Google for recipes. I compared. I contrasted. And then I realized that I didn’t need a NEW recipe, I could just adapt my own banana muffins recipe. It’s the […]
Baking with Kate in Toronto
We were in Toronto for a few days, and my niece Kate likes baking (and eating), so it seemed only logical to bake with her. Also, she’s fun to hang out with, so really, I’ll take any reason that comes my way to do spend time with her. We immediately ruled out anything that would […]
Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream
Nathaniel requested an insane cake for his birthday party. He didn’t say “devil’s food cake”, but he knew exactly what he wanted. “A chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting, and I want layers, and I want it shaped like a rectangle.” Layered rectangles? It’s not like we invited 50 kids to this thing, I think we’ll […]
Whole Grain Nutella Swirl Banana Muffins
People went NUTS over these. I made some mistakes along the way and had to improvise, and wasn’t even sure they were going to turn out okay. But not only did they turn out fine, they turned out delicious, and I have never had raves like this before. I think the word (and the substance) […]
Peanut Butter and Dark Choolate Mini Muffins
Dave doesn’t usually express a strong baking opinion, but tonight he asked for something that didn’t have pumpkin, but did have chocolate. I didn’t exactly come up with something Weight Watchers-friendly, but sometimes one must make sacrifices, especially where peanut butter and chocolate are concerned. Also, it looked like a fun recipe to make. I […]
Chocolate Clove Yogurt Cake
So while the Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Singles were baking or cooling or in various states of I’m-not-sure-if-these-will-work-out, I started working on my back-up plan. I’d seen this recipe on Pinterest a while ago, and I loved the idea of chocolate and cloves, plus I liked that it looked a little weird in the picture. […]
Banana Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal Singles
This has been a very strange evening. I don’t usually skip ahead to the end of my baking tales, but really, I was ready to give up on these weird oatmeal singles muffiny thingles completely, until Dave and Nathaniel each gobbled one up with glee. And then about ten minutes later, when I asked Dave […]
Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Loaves
I’m almost too busy savoring to type. These mini loaves are sublime. I really had no idea what I was going to bake when I got home tonight. I had bananas to use up, and I had peanut butter cravings, but I always have peanut butter cravings. Still, I felt obliged to honor them tonight. […]
Low Fat Chocolate Zucchini Cake (fail)
Things don’t always go well in baking. Sometimes, you just learn about what doesn’t work, and move on. And that’s today’s lesson. Oops. I didn’t bake last night, I went to some crazy “Restore The Core” class instead. It wasn’t exactly a mistake, but I won’t be going back. I felt good for having done […]
Mocha Snack Cake
I made this simple but magnificent cake at Mom’s in BC, and I had to find out if I could reproduce it in my own kitchen. I didn’t change the recipe one iota in either place, keeping the all purpose flour, the white sugar, and the butter, but for all I know, the magic may […]
Baking in BC: Healthy Breakfast Cookies
We were still in BC and my baking urges were not yet satisfied. The mocha cake was delicious but pure dessert, and the banana muffins were delicious but routine, so I found something that was new but not terribly decadent and it had been on my list to try for a while: Healthy Breakfast Cookies. […]
Baking in BC: Mocha Snack Cake
(with help from Serious Coffee) Okay, I just want to start by saying that this is my favorite new thing I’ve made in a long time. It’s really, really delicious, and very easy to make, and you should brew up some coffee and make it immediately. You will not regret it. I wanted to make […]
Baking in Toronto: Oatmeal Peanut Butter Snack Squares
We started out our vacation in Toronto, and I really felt like what the city was lacking was a giant dough ball. I think that’s what my brother’s house was missing too, as it certainly didn’t have one when I got there. So I set out to remedy that with the very delicious, previously tested […]
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
I decided there were more chocolate zucchini recipes out there worth trying. So I tried one. I admit I am a little distracted today. In addition, we had our summer outing at work today, so I spent the afternoon on a boat cruising around Manhattan. It was actually quite lovely, with wonderful views of the […]
Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf
“I’m glad I took the whole piece.” That’s what Dave said after he came upstairs to taste the Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf I made tonight. He took half of the piece I cut for him, but I told him to take the whole thing. He was glad. He said so! (And by the way, that’s demerara […]
Secretly Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
As Nathaniel & Juliet would sing, “It’s the final countdown…” All week I have been using my colleagues at work as guinea pigs. They tasted, they described, they compared and contrasted. They weighed the issues: kids have to like them, they can’t be too messy, they need to appeal to the widest variety of tastes, […]
Secretly Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes With Greek Yogurt Frosting
read about Night 1 read about Night 2 Tonight was the last night of true experimentation. Whatever I make tomorrow goes to the kids at St. Philip’s Academy for Read It All Up®, and that’s that. But tonight I went back to the site where I found the extremely delicious recipe for Secretly Healthy Chocolate […]
Read It All Up Test Night 1: Chocolate-Zucchini Muffins
This is going to be a week of experimentation. My friend Carol and I have started up a non-profit called Read It All Up®, which is all about combining our mutual love for reading and food into a way to get kids to love reading at a very early age. You can see more on […]
Experiments In Zucchini: Secretly Healthy Chocolate Cake
Most people who know me know of my hatred of cooked vegetables. Unless you count corn and potatoes, which are more like starches, I don’t eat any cooked vegetables at all, ever. Oh, Dave sometimes purees some carrots and sneaks them into the spaghetti sauce, and I make carrot oatmeal muffins, but that’s really as […]
Coconut Oatmeal Cookies With Mini Chocolate Chips
(for Dad’s birthday) jump to recipe So my Dad’s birthday is on Monday, and I can’t be there to celebrate with him, so I’m sending coconut. My Dad loves coconut. I wanted to make him something fun with fluffy coconut frosting, but (a) I couldn’t give Mark & Linus something delicate to carry along with […]
Espresso Chocolate Muffins
“Can you make something with espresso?” asked Kate. Of course I can. We have a house full of visiting family this week and couldn’t be happier about it. I plan to stuff them full of baked goods as much as they’ll let me, and they get to make requests too. Tonight I whipped together a […]
Oatmeal Peanut Butter Snack Squares
I’ve resisted this recipe for as long as I can. I mean, I pinned it TWELVE DAYS AGO and it has peanut butter, oatmeal, mini chocolate chips, and at some point you actually get to turn it into this: That’s twelve days too long, in my book. I had a great excuse to make it, […]
One Bowl Chocolate Cake
I’m not sure which I’m happier about: conquering a recipe with (liquid) coffee in it, or finally managing to successfully dust something with powdered sugar without having it look hilarious, like a 4-year-old did it. Both feel like long-awaited accomplishments, and both resulted in deliciousness. A long time ago, years before I was baking anything […]
Bossk Brownies from the Star Wars Cookbook
jump to recipe Nathaniel, unsurprisingly, is a Star Wars fan. And Nathaniel owns a very entertaining book called The Star Wars Cookbook. No, really, he does. We’ve made Wookie Cookies before, but this time Nathaniel really wanted the Bossk Brownies. I’ve had some bad experiences with brownies, but I decided to give it a go. […]
Cheesecake Brownie Bites
Antonia is a co-worker who likes my baking so much that it inspires me to try making new things, and she needed something decadent. I love a good baking assignment, so I narrowed it down to three choices, and let Nathaniel cast the deciding vote. It took him about three seconds. This was one of […]
Pumpkin Scones
jump to recipe The night after we got home from Pennsylvania, I was feeling the baking urge again. The baking urge means that I want to make something I’ve never made before. And that always brings me to my Pinterest board where I pin healthy recipes I want to try. And THAT is where I […]
Baking Scones At Mussers’ Bed And Breakfast
jump to recipe Every June, on or about the last day of school, we take the kids to Pennsylvania to ride the rails at Strasburg Railroad. We ride Thomas the Tank Engine, visit the train museums, buy jams in tiny jars, eat homemade ice cream and shoofly pie, and take a horse & buggy ride […]
Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies
(for Dave’s birthday) I made these at Christmas, and Dave loved them so much that this is what he wanted for his birthday instead of a cake. I offered to do both, but no: he wanted the cookies. So cookies he received. I initially found this recipe on the Food Network site, but I got […]
Mini Pumpkin Bran Muffins With Chocolate Chips
jump to recipe I am still a little surprised at the deliciousness of these. I had some pumpkin to use up, I bought some wheat bran I wanted to try out, and I had the urge to prepare something healthy, and I think I hit the jackpot with this recipe, which is pretty good for […]
Pumpkin Peanut Butter Blondies
Juliet likes peanut butter again! She wanted me to bake something with peanut butter, but I wasn’t in a cookie-making mood, what with all the pans going in and out every ten minutes and the fact that I’d just finished doing all the dinner dishes. Tomorrow I’ll make cookies, but today I wanted something that […]
Chocolate Chip Cookies
(requested by Nathaniel) Sometimes an 8-year-old boy just wants a straightforward treat. “Chocolate chip cookies,” he said. “Big ones, though…not like the little ones you usually make.” It’s true, I am guilty of making my cookies small, because then they contain fewer Weight Watchers points. Of course that strategy only works if you don’t eat […]
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins
(and other baked goods) It’s Mother’s Day, so I’m allowed to bake as much as I want, right? Last night I made the carrot oatmeal muffins again as well as the low-fat gingerbread, and then started off today with mini pancake maple muffins. Once I got those cleaned up, I whipped up some more lemon […]
Chocolate Yogurt Loaf With Powdered Sugar
Tonight I made a Rudi Cake — a tribute cake to someone special and so much missed. For extra strength, I added espresso powder. And for his white hair, I topped it with powdered sugar. Made with love and sadness and a zest for life and good flavor, I present the Chocolate Yogurt Loaf. I […]
Juliet Makes Mini Pancake Maple Muffins
It’s Saturday morning and we are all tired and a little crabby today. I’m going on a work trip tomorrow and I think it has all four of us just a little edgy. Juliet told me she didn’t want mini muffins, Nathaniel begged for them, Juliet changed her mind…and then grabbed her apron and decided […]
Maple Pancake Mini Muffins
Maple Pancake Mini-Muffins (from Bakerella) I make these almost every weekend for the kids. This was probably the first recipe that set off my love of Pinterest; I saw it posted there and realized there was a whole world of amazing baked goods worth discovering. The idea is so smart: pancakes for breakfast that are […]
Low Fat Chocolate Muffins With A Small Surprise
I’m exhausted, but I wanted a treat, and I didn’t want to feel crappy about indulging. For that, this is my go-to recipe. These muffins are incredibly easy to whip together in almost no time, and they always taste fantastic. Good texture, strong chocolate flavor, boosted by a little espresso powder. It’s a very basic […]
Red Velvet Cookies. . .
. . .with White Chocolate Chips and Cream Cheese Blobs It’s supposed to be a cream cheese swirl, but I am esthetically challenged when it comes to baked goods. I can make things that taste wonderful, but none of them look all that terrific, and some look downright scary. My treats are designed for deeper […]
Banana Yogurt Muffins on a Fresh Start Sunday
Fresh start Sunday. I have not been very good when it comes to Weight Watchers over the past few weeks. I just got this sense of entitlement about late night snacking that has not been serving me well. (But isn’t late night snacking one of life’s joys? Why must it be so bad for you? […]
