Coffee Muffins with Mocha Glaze

I have been craving coffee flavored sweets lately. Now, I am not one to go buy a frappuccino and I am also not one to make some coffee and put more than 2 teaspoons of sugar into it, but I really felt that some coffee-flavored cake or bread or muffin would be fantastic. The idea is not prominent in the baking world. Search "coffee cake" or even "coffee-flavored cake" and you mostly end up with coffee cake. Coffee cake to me does not deserve to be called that unless it's coffee-flavored! Also, I think coffee cake is way too sweet for breakfast, maybe even more oily and sweet than donuts. But I suppose that is why you eat it with coffee, because the bitter coffee will become palatable due to the lingering sweetness of the coffee cake (and vice versa).

After searching for a while and evaluating the various recipes available to me online, I came across this coffee cake muffin recipe at therecipecritic.com. The ingredients in the muffin base sounded like an easy thing to put together and didn't have too much oil, sugar, or eggs (I'm stingy with my eggs and try to be healthy by baking with less fats and sugar). But, the recipe was filled with jam and had that same sugary topping seen on coffee cakes. I wanted just a pure coffee-flavored muffin, no other flavors or sugars to mask it. So, I borrowed her muffin base, excluded the filling and topping, and put my own mocha glaze on top. I have to say the results came out very well.

The batter only produced 10 muffins in my case, but they were soft, moist, spongy. They have a crumb that stays together relatively well, but still is tender and breaks away when you bite into it. I added 1/2 teaspoon of ground coffee (Cafe du Monde) to boost the coffee flavor, but I will have to add more next time. I also used leftover coffee from the morning, which was made just regular , not strong. Due to this and the predominant sugar and flour base, the coffee flavor was not as strong as I wanted it to be. So, next time, I will brew extra strong coffee (probably do Vietnamese drip coffee using my phin and Cafe du Monde coffee), and add a full teaspoon to the batter to boost the flavor.

In making the icing. I had too small an amount of powdered sugar and added too much coffee. It was runny and definitely not suitable for icing. So I melted some bits of a dark chocolate baking bar in the microwave and stirred it in until I achieved a consistency I thought would be good.

After the muffins cooled down, I iced them. First, I tried covering the tops, but that did not look that nice. So next I went with zigzags. Much better. Still, displeased with the ugly muffins, I sprinkles some of the Cafe du Monde coffee on top, and voila! I was finally pleased.

Hope you enjoyed my journey to achieve a good-lookin' coffee muffin. Now, to the spoils! The recipe!

Coffee Muffins with Mocha Glaze (makes 10 muffins)
Muffin Ingredients
1.5 cups of flour (I use Ultra-Grain Flour)
1/4 cups of brown sugar
1/4 cup of granulated (white) sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
less than 1/4 tsp of salt
1 tsp of good quality, finely ground coffee (Cafe du Monde, Starbucks, Illy, etc.)
1/2 cup of brewed coffee, cooled to room temperaure (next time, I'll brew it extra strong)
1/4 cup of milk
1 egg
1/3 cup of vegetable oil

Glaze Ingredients
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 Tbs brewed coffee
1/2 oz to 1 oz dark baking chocolate
Extra coffee grounds for decoration (optional)

Directions

1. Sift the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Beat the coffee, milk, egg, and oil in a small bowl or large glass measuring cup.
3. Make a well in center of your dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir just until combined. Do not overmix. Set aside.
4. Pre-heat oven to 350 deg Fahrenheit.
5. Line a muffin tin symmetrically with 10 muffin liners. 
6. Pour the batter evenly into the muffin liners (if you have enough to fill 12 muffin cups about 2/3 full, go ahead)
7. Fill the remaining 2 unlined muffin cups with water about 1/3 full.
8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the middle-most muffin comes out clean. Let cool in the pan or 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.
9. While the muffins are cooling, prepare the glaze: In a small cup, beat the powdered sugar and brewed coffee until the powdered sugar has dissolved. Heat the baking chocolate in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. Mix into the powdered sugar mix. Continue to melt and add chocolate until you achieve the desired frosting consistency.
10. Once the muffins have cooled to room temperature, ice/glaze/frost/decorate. If desired, sprinkle coffee grounds on top of the glaze.

Multigrain Walnut Banana Muffins

You all probably know: I LOOOVVEEE baking. It is a truly active activity with results that you can both eat and share with others. How awesome is that? What I don't like about baking is that the results can be bad for you, with all the sugar and butter. My family is generally really healthy, my mom especially. She eats loads of fruit and nuts, has cut out pastries and chips except for very rare occasions when she'll eat a few, and is always active. My mom is one of my strongest motivators to be healthy, strong, active, and more.

Balancing healthy and my love for baking is challenging. Most of my friends know I bake relatively low-sugar and low-fat desserts, with occasional splurges when attempting to impress others. For myself, I can't stand desserts that are too sweet. I seek out a wholesome balance of sweet and salty. Grains have a natural nuttiness and subtle sweetness that I have come to love. Nuts have a lot of fat, but these are healthy fats and good for you if eaten in moderation. Sugar is now emerging as the main culprit in rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. It may seem like all sugar is bad, except for natural sources like stevia, agave, and erythriol. Those sources sound great and natural and all, but they are still added sugars. Maybe they don't cause spikes in your insulin but they are not an excuse to eat as much of these sugar sources as you want. Sugar from fruits, eaten naturally and not removed and processed, is the best way to take in your sugar.

Taking what I've learned from a variety of health resources, I attempted to make a banana nut muffin that would appeal to my mom and me: healthy yet tasty, without added sugars, full of grains and omega-3 walnuts. This muffin would be something you could eat and feel good about. Definitely not a dessert muffin, but something to enjoy in the morning with milk or an afternoon or after dinner snack.

Multigrain Walnut Banana Muffins
Ingredients
1 cup white whole wheat flour (or unbleached all purpose flour)
1 cup multigrain hot cereal (I used 7-grain hot cereal from Bob's Red Mill, or you can use 1 cup oats that have been processed in a food processor)
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
1/4 cup oil (olive or vegetable oil both work fine)
3/4 cup 2% organic milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 mashed over-ripe bananas (~1.5 cups)
1/2-3/4 cup cinnamon chips or dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Mix the flour, hot cereal (uncooked), rolled oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl.
2. In a medium sized bowl, beat the egg, oil, milk, and vanilla.
3. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour in the wet mixture. Mix just until combined.
4. Add the mashed bananas. Mix just until combined.
5. Add the cinnamon chips and chopped walnuts. Mix just until combined.
6. Preheat the oven to 400 deg F and line 12-16 muffin cups.
7. Fill the muffin cups 2/3 of the way up with the batter. (optional) Top each with a full walnut piece.
8. Bake 12-15 minutes until a toothpick inserted the center of a muffin comes out clean. 
9. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then finish cooling on a rack.

A caution is that this is healthy and you know it while eating it. To make it more appealing for the general public without adding spoons of sugar, I added in some mini cinnamon chips. Yes, this is processed sugar and I just lectured against it above, but you can't persuade others to eat healthy if it's unappetizing. Therefore, I added 1/2 cup of cinnamon chips. Next time, though, I'll add 3/4 cup of cinnamon chips to bring out the cinnamon and sweetness just a tad bit more. I also think the dark chocolate would be better than the cinnamon chips.

Scallop Vegetable Risotto and Double Banana Muffins

Hello again.

"..."

What? Don't remember me? Oh yeah. We haven't spoken in a veerryyyyy long time. Well, between fun stuff, procrastinating, school, and other various distractions, Blog, you have been set at a lower priority. But, now I have returned to post!

"Really? A review, huh?"

Nope! I have my own recipe and it's delicious! Although, I must admit, I do have a long list of restaurants that I must review on Yelp, along with other foods I have made at home since my last post.

Today, I surprisingly had a lot of time. Also, surprisingly, I was not too tired in the evening despite staying up late to try and finish homework and getting up semi-early to go to research lab. After class was over, and after taking a fun stroll through Whole Foods, I was prepared to finally achieve one of my life goals!

Cooking risotto!!!

So I did it. And I was so psyched when I finished and even now. Haha. The finished product was really good, and SOOO much better than Pasta Pomodoro's special this month: Asparagus Risotto. That thing was bland and had no love put in it. Just kinda thick rice with asparagus. Nasty. Their El Cerrito branch will be receiving a bad review on Yelp soon...

Anyways, back to the risotto. A couple days ago, I made my own vegetable stock out of a bunch of vegetable shavings and leftovers. So excited that this dish is COMPLETELY from scratch. Makes it such a proud experience. It is a scallop risotto with red bell peppers, red onions, celery, and carrots. Apparently, the onion, peppers, celery, and carrots is the usual base mix of vegetables to start any dish. My roommate called it some fancy Italian or French word, but I forgot.

I based my risotto of the general procedure for "Our Favorite Risotto" from Cooking Light that was made with mushrooms and mascarpone cheese. Instead, I added my own vegetables, herbs, meat, and cheese. Below you will find the recipe. It came out very creamy and delicious, but must be served warm-hot to really enjoy it to its full extent. Before making the risotto, I made some banana muffins modified from a recipe my mom used. My mom baked for the first time last night!!! She made these banana muffins and added too many bananas and less butter, but it came out amazing. But she's back at home home and I'm in my college home, so I didn't get any. So I craved and made some myself - with my usual changes of course (cinnamon, spices, wheat). The recipe for the banana muffins follow the risotto recipe. (Picture to be added tomorrow).

(Pardon the messy pot. It's the starch and cheese.)

Scallop Risotto (serves 4-5)
Ingredients
1 medium-large red bell pepper, large diced
1/4 large red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, including leaves, diced
1/2 lb small-medium bay scallops, patted dry
Various herbs (I used dried oregano, basil, thyme, and parsley, freely added)
3/4-1 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
1 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1/4-1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Olive oil for sauteing
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
1. Heat stock in saucepan to a simmer but do not boil. Keep warm.
2. Saute the red onions till limp. Add garlic and Arborio rice. Saute for 5 min. Add 1/2 cup white wine and cook, stirring, until absorbed.
3. Add 1 cup of stock and cook, stirring until most of it is absorbed. Meanwhile, begin to saute the carrot and celery (reserve the celery leaves). Add the red bell peppers and continue sauteing. Remove from heat once cooked. Add stock to rice 1/2 cup a time, stirring constantly, until absorbed each time.
4. Season the scallops with salt, black pepper, oregano, and basil. On a hot pan with olive oil, sear scallops till cooked through on each side. Kinda stir-fry it. Add in vegetables to reheat, then remove from heat.
5. Once rice is thick and starchy, and fold in scallop-vegetable mix. Add in rosemary, thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper, to taste. Add in Parmesan cheese, and fold through rice.
6. Spoon into bowls and top with chopped celery leaves. Enjoy!

Double Banana Muffins (14 normal muffins, or 12 muffins + 6 mini muffins)
Ingredients
4-5 ripe, medium bananas, mashed
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sugar (mix white and brown)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 TBS canola oil
1 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, to taste
1/4 cup chopped banana chips, toasted in oven

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare muffin tins with grease of liners.
2. Beat bananas, egg, sugar, vanilla, butter, and oil.
3. Mix dry ingredients. Add to wet ingredients. Fold in banana chips.
4. Pour into muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Note: Make sure to check on the mini ones just to make sure they don't cook too much before the big ones.

Black Cherry Muffins

On the same day that I made my banana bread, I made cherry muffins so I could use the oven at one time. We had some dark cherries from a few sales at the supermarket, and my mom forgot that we had them. I took them out and decided to remake the fresh cherry muffins I had at Souplantation!

I used the Black Cherry Sour Cream Muffins recipe from Baking Bites. As I never have sour cream, I used vanilla yogurt instead. And I used whole milk instead of cherry juice. Whole milk really adds flavor to all these baked goods. Even though I did not glaze the top with an egg wash or milk, they came out shiny and moist. My sister asked if I did, and I said, "No, they just came out like that." I think it has to do with the yogurt and milk giving it a nice sheen. Pitting and chopping the dark cherries covered my hand in a dark red juice. This stuff really stains! But it was well worth it.


The first bite, I thought they were bland, but as you let the taste come out, it is a really good muffin. Not too sweet, just right. Perfect for a light breakfast or after-meal snack. The warm cherries are great too. I bet a little white icing drizzled lightly on top would be a tasty and pretty addition.

Got the Blues? Make Muffins!

Summer is that special time for berries, berries, and more berries! The entire food community is chock full of cool (in both meanings of the term) berry desserts and dishes that just highlight the vibrant colors of the season. Muffins hold a special place in my heart (and my mouth!), and the sound of "Blueberry Muffins" has such a wonderful ring to it. After going to Souplantation, my mom really enjoyed their blueberry muffin and their cherry muffin. The cherries came out piping out; so good fresh! The blueberry muffin I didn't taste, but they used tiny little dried ones, which are never as good as the real things!

Henry's Marketplace had a sale two weeks ago: blueberries for only 88¢! She bought a few cases. Also on sale that week (and for the past few weeks) were the dark red cherries. Dark, delicious, and juicy. My mom really liked the little muffins and asked if I could make them. I was so happy she asked me to bake for her!

I borrowed the blueberry recipe from Baking Bites. It's called Big Blueberry Muffins. The blueberries we got from Henry's were definitely big, and I added more blueberries than called for. I thought it was a good amount of blueberries, but my aunt thought it was too much. With so many blueberries packing the batter, I ended up making 24 scrumptious muffins instead of just 16. I tried to sneak in just a touch of wheat flour, but my mom could still taste it. Just stick to the all purpose flour if you got non-healthy eaters. Otherwise, this tastes very nice!