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!

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.

Blackberry Buttermilk Muffins & Pistachio Streusel

Usually, when it comes to whipping up something to go in the oven, I look in my fridge and cupboards, see what I have too much of, see what what’s going to expire soon, then decide what to bake from there.

This time, however, I went out of my way to buy frozen blackberries and pistachios to make this vision of a buttermilk muffin I had!

So, lemme tell you (if I haven’t already) that there’s no going wrong with Joy of Baking recipes — but as much as I adore everything on that website, sometimes the recipes just seem a little average.

I think of them as excellent spring-boards for kitchen creativity.

That’s where my salty-sweet pistachio streusel comes in: it takes buttermilk and blackberries and lemon and gives them a twist of flavour and texture!

Oh, and did I mention that when these muffins are warm from the oven, biting into one is just like taking a bite of a pancake?

These muffins totally taste like buttermilk berry pancakes! How good is that?

Vanilla-Ginger Jam Muffins

Sundays are quickly becoming my favourite day of the week.

They’re just so damned good these days — I can go out on Saturday night, or stay in with good company and a bottle of wine, go to bed late, sleep in til 9am (which is pretty late for me), and then wake up, do chores, run errands, satisfy my new Boardwalk Empire addiction, and, of course, bake for fun!

This week I decided to make some muffins, since I haven’t made any in forever! Why is that?

Muffins get over shadowed by the fanciness and trendiness of cupcakes, I think. Muffins aren’t a “treat” — they’re a quick breakfast for when you’re on the run. Muffins are taken for granted — even I’m guilty of hardly ever baking any. Muffins are good and can actually be good for you, too. Uhh. Not that these ones are.

These are more like “treat” muffins, or, make-for-brunch-and-impress-your-fellow-brunchers-type muffins. These aren’t loaded with whole wheat flour, oats, nuts, or dried fruits (I made some of those last week — but they’re in my freezer for quick breakfasts, and far too lumpy and funny looking to write about), but they’re full of warm vanilla flavour, a hint of ginger, and a plum jam surprise in the middle! C’mon! It’s a self-jamming muffin! It’s a muffin out to prove that muffins can be special, too.

Now if I could only invent a self-buttering muffin. Oh hell yes would I ever be in the money.

*adapted from Anna Olson