jump to recipe This recipe for Vanilla Bean Blood Orange Mini Loaves turned into The Great Ingredient Improvisation Experiment. I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I had to wing it a little, and once I was winging it, I started adding in some things too. The results were incontrovertible: a perfect soft crumb, and […]
Mini Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
This edition of Baking Adventure in a Messy Kitchen will heretofore be known as. . . The Flattening.
I don’t know why these mini muffins turned out so flat. The photos on the original recipe look lovely, with tiny, cute puffy little muffins perched on a tea towel. Mine came out flat as pancakes on top, almost as if I wanted them that way. Oh wait! Yeeah, I WANTED them that way. Flat muffins. Who doesn’t want flat muffins?
Honey Tea Bread
I’ve been wanting to try making this recipe for weeks, but first I had to use up the carrots, zucchini, and bananas that were sitting around. Finally I ran out of everything, and felt it was morally okay to proceed. (I hate wasting food, okay?)
I had a feeling this bread was going to be something special and I was right. The texture is soft and perfect, reminding me of that Chai Tea Bread I enjoy so much. And it’s sweetened with honey; not a grain of sugar passed through my hands.
Soft & Thick Snickerdoodle Cookies
jump to recipe When you need to whip together some crowd pleasing cookies, this is a perfect go-to recipe. They’re sweet, cinnamon-y, puffy and soft, satisfyingly filling, and don’t have any objectionable ingredients. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like snickerdoodle cookies. Of course I’m not a purist about such things, so when […]
Carrot Tea Cake with Oat Crumb Topping
This tea cake is so delicious that I made another one three days after making the first one, and the only reason I waited so long is because we were away for the weekend.
The cake itself is warm with spices, and the topping adds a crunchy sweetness to every bite. It’s a magical combination. Hard to believe it starts out with something as mundane as a cup of shredded carrots.
Butterscotch Peanut Butter Cookies
It was the 4th of July, and the kids deserved cookies. And when we were in Pennsylvania, I’d picked up something intriguing called “butterscotch peanut butter”, and I thought that would make for an interesting variation. I was right! These are terrific. Sweet, nutty, crunchy, and crumbly.
Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Muffins
Another win for the peanut butter team! These Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Muffins are delicious, good for you, and hunger-satisfying in the best way.
Honey Orange Oat Bran Muffins
jump to recipe These turned out great! I could have just added some orange zest to one of my existing bran muffin recipes, but I like to keep trying new things, plus it’s been a while since I baked with oat bran instead of wheat bran. The results did not disappoint. This is a tasty […]
Peanut Butter Muffins
If you love peanut butter, then you love these muffins, whether you know it now or not.
(I love peanut butter.)
They’re not healthy breakfast muffins, though. They’re dessert-y, peanut butter fantasy muffins. And they’re very easy to make.
Golden Oatmeal Spice Muffins
Soft and fluffy muffins, moist without being dense, and full of the beautifully intermingled mix of the spices I’ve used, with a little sweetness from the vanilla.
Wheat Germ Bread
I know, it doesn’t sound tasty, does it? Wheat Germ Bread. Wheat Germ Bread? How is a person supposed to get excited about that? Well, taste it. Because once you taste it, you’ll get it, and once you find out how easy it is to make, you’ll make it, and once you start eating it, […]
Blood Orange Tea Muffins (mini)
A while back I made some delicious Meyer Lemon Tea Muffins, only I didn’t realize they were supposed to be mini muffins so I only ended up with 9 of them. Since they were delicious, I decided to give them another shot, this time using blood oranges instead of lemons. And behold: mini muffins. Delicious, soft, fluffy blood orange tea muffins.
Chai Spiced Vanilla Bean Muffins
Wonderful. A complex, layered flavor, the chai and vanilla. The chai is what lingers on your tongue afterwards, but the vanilla brings sweetness and smoothness to it.
Blood Orange Pound Cake
jump to recipe I finally fixed the white balance on my camera. (Apologies for the previous two non-white-balanced blog entries.) I also found blood oranges at our local grocery store. I celebrated these events by baking with the oranges and taking pictures of the results. I thought it might be fun to take one of […]
Honey Pumpkin Bran Muffins
jump to recipe I still had the white balance settings wrong for this entire batch of photos and it’s annoying me because these muffins were really delicious and you can’t even see their true beauty. Trust me, they looked lovely. I found these in the bottom depths of one of my Pinterest boards. Sometimes I […]
Pumpkin Muffins, made over and still delicious
jump to recipe I’ve made these before, but I put a spin on them this time: I wanted to know if I could make them healthier without compromising on deliciousness. And the answer: a resounding yes. I’ve been looking for a formula for a long time that would cover how to add flax and wheat […]
Meyer Lemon Spice Bread
I confess I find the name of this bread somewhat misleading. It’s not really about the lemons; this bread is all about the spice. A little too much spice, I think, which is a very big statement coming from this particular spice lover. That said, I might take another crack at this, because I love […]
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 […]
Oatmeal Tea Bread redux: An Adventure In Toasted Walnuts
I have a confession to make: I have never toasted nuts before. I generally don’t cook with nuts, either, and part of that is my own texture preference. I like nuts, but I don’t love biting into something crunchy and resistant in the middle of something nice and cakey. I don’t usually bake with chocolate […]
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins With Juliet
The kids were completely disinterested in the Chai Pumpkin Bread, unsurprisingly, and as of late I haven’t been baking things that Juliet particularly likes, so I offered to make her something she’d like, and after some waffling over the cookies vs. muffins debate, she made her wishes known: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, please. And she […]
Chai Pumpkin Bread
jump to recipe I wanted something to contrast yesterday’s bran muffins, something with a more complex flavor. When I saw that the ingredients for this recipe included cardamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, and brewed chai tea in addition to cinnamon and nutmeg, I knew my search was over. See all that stuff? I figured I’d […]
