Babka Muffins

Babka muffins — have you heard of ’em? I hadn’t!

They’re one of the many new tasty recipes I’ve been exposed to while at school.

Unlike “regular” muffins (the kind that Liz says are for “people who don’t have the nads to eat cake for breakfast”) these Babka buddies are leavened only slightly with baking powder and mostly with yeast.

That said, they’re still soft and cakey enough for you people would rather eat actual cake for breakfast. Ha!

Oh, but truly awesome thing about Babka muffins is that they’re seriously customizable, as-you-like-’em type muffins.

Do you wanna fill them with brown sugar, ginger, and diced apple? Do it!

How about melted butter with vanilla sugar and toasted almond slices? Ah-ye-ah.

Pumpkin puree with sweet cinnamon chips? That’s my Babka style!

Also (and this totally slipped my mind til now — I’ve been so busy lately!), the lovely Juanita recently nominated me for the “Versatile Blogger Award” — but, as flattered as I am, I just can’t fill the criteria to accept!

One Year Blogiversary

Hellooooo, world!

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year already.

It’s kind of strange to think about, considering that this blog is the first consistent written account of my life that I’ve ever kept. Ever.

This time last September I was going into my last stretch finishing up a BA, getting tutorials on how to use WordPress from Miriam, fumbling around with my camera and lighting in my teeny-tiny kitchenette (actually, I’m still doing that), and posting my first recipe: pumpkin cinnamon spice cookies (behold the terrible photos)!

Now it’s 110+ recipes, 365 days, and 86,000+ page views later. Whew!

Part of me definitely thought that I could never really stick with any one thing for very long, but…

I’ve gained an invaluable amount of experience through it all — blogging has developed my creativity, knowledge, experience, discipline, and determination.

Of course, the remarkable encouragement I’ve had from friends, family, and fellow bloggers has kept me determined, too.

The amount of effort and planning I put into each recipe means a lot to me — it’s always my hope that how much I care about food, particularly sweet foods, shines through in my posts. And even though I love everything I make, it’s only natural to have a few favourites…

So here are my top five recipes from the last year — after the jump!

Raspberry-Lavender Oat Scones

So, my last post was pretty brief and shallow.

It was just about bread. It had to be just about bread, because I couldn’t really think about anything else.

As I was writing on Sunday, I checked my voice mail and found out that my family’s dog, Twojay, had died. He was old and sick and I knew he was on his way out, but that doesn’t make his passing any easier.

He was a good dog — an adorably dumb, skinny yellow lab that never barked, never bit, would wag his tail so hard that he’d wiggle all over, and loved everyone.

So, I just wrote about bread, scheduled the post, had a good cry, and fell asleep.

It’s still hard to look at old photos of Twojay, but I’m sure that once the pain of losing him passes, I’ll be glad to have pictures to look back on in fondness.

Yeah.

There were things I wanted to write about, too — like, about how Laura over at Cake & Feminism has made an awesomely original blackberry brownie recipe (much less labour-intensive than my pull-apart bread if you need a quick blackberry fix) and how Alpaca-farmin’ Liz over at A Tablespoon of Liz has made vegan lavender shortbread (more lavender)!

Shout-outs make the blogosphere go ’round — not to mention that reading other baking blogs can keep me fairly distracted from real life.

I’m sure we’ve been through times when a little distraction helps in a big way.

Cheese & Herb Garden Muffins

As soon as I move out of my shoebox-sized apartment, I’m determined to start my very own garden.

Even if it’s not a real garden, even it’s just a few potted plants on my window sill (since I don’t have high hopes for getting a balcony or a patio in the near future, I’d even just settle for another 100 feet of square footage at this point!), it would be great to grow my own herbs and have a few plants.

My boyfriend, though — man, he has it good!

His family has a huge rooftop patio that gets lots of light all year-round and he’s only grown tomatoes.

Once.

Because he was inspired by growing virtual tomatoes on Farmville.

Seriously? Please take this opportunity to facepalm with me.

Sometimes it really gets me cheesed to see people not taking advantage of their good fortune and opportunities. The time is drawing near when I just march over to his place and commandeer the roof!

Strawberry Lassi Muffins

For those of you who haven’t tasted the silky bliss of a sweet strawberry lassi, lemme tell you all about it.

A lassi is an Indian smoothie, and while there are many different regional variations of lassi, the sweet versions start with fresh fruit, often mango or strawberry.

The fruit is then blended together with thick yogurt or cream, honey, rose water, cardamom or cumin (curry smoothie — yikes!), and ice. The result is rich, satisfying, and perfect with a bowl of warm vegetable curry or (my favourite) shahi paneer.

Geez… and now I’ve gone and given myself a mad hankering for Indian food.

Paneer cravings aside, these muffins were another one of my happy accidents (weird how they often seem to involve cardamom) — originally intended to be cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, the batter didn’t rise up and smooth itself out during like I expected it to do.

So, what did she get for her birthday instead? Muffins with strawberries, creamy ricotta, honey, rose water, and cardamon  — less fancy than cupcakes, but more practical! Especially for those breakfast-on-the-run-type mornings.

Cupcakes are totally overdone these days anyways, right? Yeesh.

Tropical Banana Oatmeal Muffins

These fabulously good-for-you muffins are dairy-free, butter-free, and oil-free! I could hardly believe it.

I got the recipe for these from the website of a local TV personality, Erin Ireland — who also happens to be a total foodie!

Not only that, but she’s totally nice, too.

When I e-mailed Erin not only did she reply quickly, but she actually seemed genuinely interested in some of my recipes. That totally struck me as down-to-earth, which is not what one might normally expect from a busy person on TV — I was really impressed!

Anyways, if you’re ever wanting for a guilt-free breakfast treat, look no further.