Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

A couple of weeks ago I bought some pumpkins from a garden center.  One of the pumpkins was a pie pumpkin, which is the kind of pumpkin that you can puree and eat.  I didn't want to just eat the pumpkin by itself, so I asked Lara for a pumpkin recipe I could try.  This is the recipe she gave me.

They were delicious!  I couldn't get enough of them and thought they would make for a perfect Christmas morning breakfast! They're a little dense, but moist and delicious...especially fresh and hot out of the pan!  My roommates and I couldn't stop eating them. 

Recipe adapted from The Virtual Goody Plate 

Click here for printable recipe.

Posted by AnnaLisa


 The ingredients:

 10 T unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice (next time I will double both the nutmeg and allspice and add a teaspoon of cinnamon)
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups pure pumpkin puree (from a 15 oz. can)
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs

Sugar Coating:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour 12 standard muffin cups.

Make batter: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and allspice. In a small bowl whisk together buttermilk and pumpkin puree.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions pumpkin mixture and beat to combine.

 

Spoon 1/3 cup batter into each muffin cup and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, 18-22 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine granulated sugar and cinnamon. Let muffins cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack. Working with one at a time, remove muffins from pan, brush all over with melted butter, then toss to coat in sugar mixture. Let muffins cool completely on a wire rack. (Store in airtight container up to 1 day.)

  Makes about 15 muffins.

Enjoy!


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Orange-Zucchini Loaf with Orange Glaze

One thing I love about summertime is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Although my zucchini plant has not started producing yet, I found a bag of shredded zucchini in my freezer that has been pushed around since last year.  Since I will soon be overwhelmed (hopefully) with the need for freezer space, I needed to use it up.  When I saw this recipe, I knew that this is what I would make with it.  Unfortunately, after going to the store I realized I forgot the lemons.  I improvised and used an orange instead and I think it turned out really well!  It was late at night when I made it and I forgot to take pictures until it was done, but it was so delicious I wanted to share it now.  I think next time I will add more zucchini...


Recipe Source: Nancy Creative

Click here for printable recipe.

Posted by Katie.

Ingredients:

Bread-

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup canola oil

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup buttermilk (go here to find out how to make buttermilk with just milk and vinegar)

Juice of 1/2 orange (or 2 Tbsp.)

Zest of 1/2 orange

1 cup shredded zucchini

Glaze-

1 cup powdered sugar

Juice of 1/2 orange

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour a loaf pan and set it aside.

In a large bowl, blend together flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat 2 eggs well.  Add canola oil and sugar and blend well.  Add the buttermilk, orange juice and zest and blend it all together.  Add in the flour mixture and zucchini and stir until everything is well blended, but don't over-mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.  

Once loaf is completely cool, prepare the glaze:  Just mix the powdered sugar and orange juice until smooth.  Pour glaze evenly over loaf and let sit until set.

Enjoy!

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Nutella Sweet Rolls

Happy Nutella Day! February 5th is officially World Nutella Day. It started out in 2007 with a couple huge fans of Nutella. It has caught on and now people all over the world can have another excuse to consume Nutella. (not like you really need an excuse) You can find 100's of recipes with Nutella here on the Nutella Day website. Thankfully my son (who is allergic to peanuts) has actually been cleared to eat Nutella and we love it in our home. I recently bought a Nutella cookbook and thought I'd give cooking with it a try.

I was making sweet rolls for my family on a cold winter day, and I thought about adding Nutella to the middle. My boys love spreading Nutella on the top of the sweet rolls, so why not put it in the middle as well?! I use my mother-in-law's recipe because my husband is a sweet roll connoisseur and he knows when I've been experimenting with other recipes. He always says, "This is good, but it's not my mom's." So I now always turn to this recipe for sweet rolls.

The Ingredients:

Sweet roll dough:

2 Tbsp yeast (or 2 packages of yeast)

1/2 c warm water

1 tsp sugar

1/2 c milk

1/4 c butter

1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten

4 1/2 c flour + little more for rolling out dough

Filling:

1/2 c butter, softened

1/2 c brown sugar

2 Tbsp cocoa powder (optional)

2 tsp cinnamon

1 c Nutella, warmed

Glaze:

2 Tbsp milk

1 c powdered sugar

OR warmed Nutella to drizzle

The Directions:

IF using a bread machine to make your dough, then add all the liquid ingredients first. (or according to the directions of your machine). I heat the 1/2 c milk and the 1/4 c butter together until the butter is mostly melted. Add to machine. Add warm water. (How warm? It depends in how warm your butter/milk combination got. You may need to cool it off by adding not so warm water. Then add the 2 beaten eggs. Then add all the dry ingredients. Choose 'dough' cycle and turn on machine.

IF doing it by hand, then place your warm water in a large bowl along with the yeast and teaspoon of sugar to proof. Wait 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan (or in the microwave) mix together the milk, remaining sugar, salt, and butter and heat till butter is mostly melted. Then cool to lukewarm. Add the beaten eggs to the milk mixture. Add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture. Mix in the 4 1/2 c flour and then turn out on counter and knead until you have a smooth and nonsticky dough. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

When risen to twice its size, (or when the dough cycle on the machine is finished) punch the dough down in the middle and let rest a few minutes. Divide dough into two balls. This recipe usually makes 2 9x13 pans of sweet rolls.

Prepare your baking pans by greasing them with either butter or non stick spray.

Roll one ball out to a 13 x 9 (approximate) rectangle.

Spread with half of the softened butter. (the other half is for the other ball of dough).

Sprinkle 1/2 c brown sugar to form a thin layer all over. The butter and the brown sugar is what it going to form the caramel goo that is so classic with a sweet roll. (although we're using Nutella as well, I just have to have that caramely goo on the bottom of my sweetroll!). Sprinkle with cinnamon (more or less for taste). Skip the cinnamon if you want to have more chocolate flavor and replace it with cocoa powder. (about 1-2 Tbsp for the whole rectangle. Attention: this will make it extra chocolaty!

Heat Nutella so that it's easier to drizzle, (about 30 sec-1 minute in microwave) and drizzle 1/2 cup all over the sugar. Try not to drizzle over the bottom inch of your rectangle or else it will squish out as you roll it up.

Roll it up jelly roll style.

Slice into 1 inch slices and place in your prepared, greased 9x13 pan. Leave some space in between so they will have space to rise. Cover the pans and let rise again until double in size, about 1 hour (or less depending on how warm your kitchen is)

Repeat all the above steps with the second ball of dough.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook sweet rolls in oven for 15-18 minutes or until the top is nicely golden, but the middle is still cooked.

For the sugar glaze add powdered sugar in a small bowl and gradually add milk by mixing with a fork. Don't add all the milk at once, because you might need less. If your glaze gets too runny, just add more powdered sugar. If too thick, add a little milk. You want it to be a drizzle consistency.

Drizzle over your warm sweet rolls.

Serve as soon as you want. These are fine the next day heated up in the microwave as well. (at least my boys don't complain). IF you prefer MORE chocolate, heat up some Nutella until it ressembles a glaze and drizzle it over your sweet rolls. Yum

IF you don't like Nutella or don't want to make them chocolaty, then of course you can make these like regular sweet rolls. Add more cinnamon to taste or raisins. Here are some regular ones.

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Flapjacks

"Who else could go for some flapjacks right now?"

"...Too early for flapjacks?"

Did anyone else watch "Groundhog Day" yesterday? I guess that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday which means six more weeks of winter. "Don't forget your booties because it's cold out there..."

Anyway I was thinking about flapjacks and did you know that in England flapjacks are NOT pancakes but instead it's an oatmeal bar? (You've gotta love Wikipedia). I looked up some recipes and decided to try it because it looks pretty yummy and incredibly versatile. I'm using the recipe that I found on epicurious because most of the comments were from people from England and they seemed pretty excited to have a recipe close to the original treat. I can tell you that my boys were excited to come home from school on a cold day and have these along side a cup of hot cocoa.

Posted by Jen.

The Ingredients:

1/2 c butter

1/2 c packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp corn syrup*

1 Tbsp honey*

2 1/2 c quick oats

pinch salt

*The true English recipe calls for 1/4 c golden syrup. I don't have any so I duplicated it with part corn syrup and part honey. You may notice that there isn't honey in the picture. I actually had to borrow some from a friend and the honey is in the little red container!

The Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 pan.

In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter, brown sugar, syrups, and salt until smooth.

Remove from heat and add the oatmeal. Stir until it is all coated.

Add to the greased pan and press in oatmeal mixture until it is all even.

Place in oven and cook for 15-20 minutes. When you remove it, it will still be soft. Trust me that it will harden up when cooled. The longer you cook them, the crunchier they will be once they're cooled. I took mine out at 17 minutes because I wanted them soft like a granola bar.

Wait about 5 minutes and slice into small squares. (Yes, while still a little soft. This will make it easier to separate when cooled)

Eat when cooled. I'm excited to try these again but I'll add chocolate chips, OR raisins and cinnamon, OR Craisins and orange zest... Oh! The options are limitless! What would you add?

OK. I'm sure that some of you are thinking, "That's fine, but I was hoping for a pancake recipe." Well, lucky for you there are many pancake recipes on this blog to choose from. Here are just a few to satisfy your pancake craving.

Pancake posts:

Cheesecake pancakes with strawberriesBanana chocolate chip pancakesLemon ricotta pancakes with raspberryPumpkin pancakesOatmeal raspberry chocolate chip pancakesCrepes

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Aunt Debra's Sugar Muffins

Sunday Morning Sugar Muffins

We have a tradition in our family of always having “Sugar Muffins” on Sunday morning. That is not the official title but my daughter began calling them this as a little girl, so that is what we go with. Breakfasts are a big deal in my home. No one leaves the house with out being fully loaded to head off to school or other activities. My mother fixed these occasionally for our family and now my twin sister and I have both turned these into our traditional breakfast for the Sabbath. Hope you enjoy!



Ingredients:
3 C Flour
1 C Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 C milk

Topping:
1/2 cup melted butter
Plenty of cinnamon and sugar mixture

Directions:
Stir together dry ingredients and then add the wet. Stir till moist and then scoop into sprayed muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While the muffins are baking, melt another cube of butter. Mix together plenty of sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.



After baking, roll each muffin in melted butter and then into the cinnamon and sugar mixture.
Serve with other favorite breakfast foods.




You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers!
Love,
Aunt Debra

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Best Breakfast Recipes

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  Ours was nice and relaxing (as you could probably tell from our attire in the last post) and I am looking forward to more relaxing this week! 

This week I am joining SnoWhite at Finding Joy in My Kitchen in posting our best recipes of 2011.  I'm not sure if she meant that it was supposed to have been posted in 2011, but I am including our favorites of 2011 (no matter when they were posted).  Here is a list of our favorite breakfast recipes this year (in no particular order).  Asterisks indicate that the recipe is a long-standing family favorite. 

1.  Strawberry Cheesecake Pancakes--with real chunks of cheesecake!
2.  Chunky Monkey Pancakes with PB syrup--with bananas and chocolate and peanut butter, it's a fun combination that my family loves
3. Cinnamon Roll Cake--tastes like cinnamon rolls, without the stress!
4.  Apple Fritters--an old classic from my Grandma
5.  Caramel Rolls--yeah, they're that good
6.  Strawberry Filled Oatmeal Muffins--no need for butter on these muffins!
7.  Secret Buttermilk Syrup*--we make this at least once a week at our house
8.  Buttermilk Pecan Waffles (or pancakes)*--with or without the pecans, this is a good classic waffle or pancake recipe
9.  Cinnamon Twists--much easier than cinnamon rolls, but just as good
10.  Mom's Streusel Breakfast Cake*--in our repertoire for well over a decade, this still is one of our favorites of 2011
11.  Peanut Butter Pancakes *--a little twist on an old classic

(I had a hard time arranging the pictures in the order I wanted them to be, so here's a guide)

Top row:  Strawberry Cheesecake Pancakes, Cinnamon Twists, Cinnamon Roll Cake
Second row:  Apple Fritters, Peanut Butter Pancakes,Chunky Monkey Pancakes with PB syrup
Third row: Caramel Rolls, Strawberry Filled Oatmeal Muffins, Buttermilk Pecan Waffles
Fourth row:  Secret Buttermilk Syrup*, Mom's Streusel Breakfast Cake

This post is shared at  Finding Joy in My Kitchen's Countdown to 2012, where food bloggers share their best recipes of 2011. 

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