Banana Nut Muffins with a Cinnamon Streusel Topping!

Have you ever thrown a house party for no particular reason? Well, if you have you’ll know that having 50 people ’round Isn’t an easy undertaking. Between the mountain of food the needs to be cooked, the house that needs to be tidied and the entertainment to be organised it’s a hell of a lot of work.

So these were one of the only foods that I managed to photograph (they were out of the oven first) while the light was good. I know I’ve done a lot of muffins and cupcakes, but they really are my favourite things! And these ones are especially good.

The excessive amount of brown sugar makes these muffins almost caramelly! There’s barely any granulated in this recipe at all. And brown sugar is a bit healthier, right?

Weirdly enough I don’t find many people who get as excited over a muffin as I do. There’s just something about the warm spongey cake studded with chocolate chips (always necessary) and hidden under the disguise of ‘a fairly healthy breakfast option’  that’s just so comforting! So these muffins are for anyone who joins me in the muffin fan club, they’ve even got a brown sugar cinnamon streusel on top! 🙂

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/02/18/master-muffin-mix/ This is the link to the original recipe. All credit goes to Sally.

These high rise muffins have to most glorious crispy crust on top. It’s the initial high baking temperature that makes them rise so high and form that amazing crust. The brown sugar in the streusel also gave them a caramel sheen.  I think that these muffin tops would be worthy of Lorelai any day. If she were around I’d be making a muffin bottom pie for sure! (Sorry about that ‘Gilmore Girls’ reference there!)

These muffins were gobbled up in no time. They were devoured even before the Avoca Carrot Cake, which is a sure fire favourite around here. It must have been that they were freshly baked and still steaming with the melted chocolate chips still warm in their centres and the aroma of cinnamon just drifting…… Sorry, I got a bit carried away there! All I meant to say was that these muffins are divine. And an amazing Autumnal treat. Perfect for the changing of the season.

Well, happy baking guys! Hope you’ve had a good first month back to school.

xxxxx

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Marvellous Midnight Muffins!

Very tired both physically and mentally I sit down to tell all of you non-existant readers all about my marvellous midnight muffins. These are undoubtedly the nicest muffins I have ever cooked or even tasted. They’re better than bakery muffins, better than chocolate muffins, they’re even better than Coco’s amazing chocolate chocolate chip muffins that go great in between a luxurious coffee and one of their delicious cranberry scones!

I got the recipe for these muffins on Sally’s Baking Addiction, a food blog that I am loving more and more every day. These muffins are a variation of her Jumbo Sized Rasperry Chocolate Chip Muffins. I didn’t have rasperries and chocolate chips aren’t big enough for me so I decided to make blueberry chocolate chunk muffins.

You have to try this recipe, no questions asked, you will honestly never need another muffin mix again!

Here’s the link:

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/06/11/jumbo-raspberry-chocolate-chip-muffins/

So as you know, yesterday was a busy day. I had planned to bake in the afternoon but sadly that didn’t happen. The thought of baking was the only thing that had gotten me through the week and I wasn’t going to give it up that easily, so at 11.30 on a Friday evening I began to bake.

As I was tired I became slightly delusional while baking and started taking strange pictures. For example:

Mr. Eggy.

This recipe was perfect for my tired and delusional brain because it was incredibly easy, a two bowl affair.They were in the oven within ten minutes. And as I was so tired I sat on the floor and stared at them rising for the guts of 20 minutes while the dog did the washing up for me.

Bowl number 1.

And then,

Bowl number 2.

Needless to say I scrubbed them both pretty well afterwards. But all in all it was an easier job for me.

There was a moment while I sat there staring at the muffins rising that I began to worry. ‘Are these muffins going to do the disaster cookie submergance?’ I was honestly afraid that their beautiful muffin tops that were forming such perfect mushroom shapes in the pan were going to overflow and join together like one giant muffin top cake. But they didn’t, they stayed in their beautiful rounded, perfect dome shapes the whole way through the cooking process and for the following ten minutes until they were safely submerged together in both me and Jay’s (mum) bellies.

These muffins are the bee’s knees and the cat’s hat. They’re absolutely massive, you couldn’t wish for a taller more perfectly formed muffin. The recipe told me to put the mixture into 6 muffin tins, however I’m guessing that this was an American recipe as as hard as I tried, even when they were filled right up to the very top I could fit the mixture into no less than 9. I won’t complain though. They were bigger and better than I could have ever imagined.

Up until last night I’d always disagreed with Lorelai (Gilmore Girls) when she said that the muffin tops are the very best part of the muffin. But these ones actually were! They were so perfectly browned and just a bit crispier than the rest of the muffin. Some of the muffins had blueberries and chocolate just cracking the surface and… and… Well, I could talk about the muffin tops alone for hours. But for now I’ll move on to the rest of the muffin.

Basically, all I can say is sublime. They were sublime. They were fluffy without being too light and hearty without being dense. The brown sugar gave them a certain depth which along with the cinnamon practically melted my heart. And being the chocoholic that I am the chocolate chunks and the blueberries made the lot into a very strong contender (maybe even the strongest)  for the best muffin recipe. That is in my opinion respectfully of course.

So these muffins being as good as they were it wasn’t long before they were, let’s say, not in such pretty photographic positions.          And I wasn’t the only one interested. It seemed as though Freya had gotten a taste for the mixture!

So now I must leave you with the hope that you will go ahead and give these beauties a try while I go and finish off that tin of natural yoghurt that I bought for the korma that I made last night (waste not want not) in some more muffins. These ones containing peanut butter. Yum! About which I will update you soon.

Bon nuit!                                                                                                                                                                                                     xxx