Let's Bake Breakfast Muffins

When I read books, I tend to mark them up. I underline things, write notes in the margins, and use the blank pages at the front of books to make indexes of my notes. Sometimes I even mark up the introduction and the footnotes.

Tyler Florence's new cookbook, "Inside the Test Kitchen", taught me that cookbooks even call for this kind of interaction! His unique style really came through with this book that is bound like a moleskine journal and features pictures that were only taken with an iPad.

The book begins with a brief summary of Tyler's kitchen history as well as an introduction that featured some words that took me right back to the wisdom my Mom shared with me all the way through elementary school.

I have another habit...Whenever I eat food that I didn't make, I immediately start trying to figure out what flavors I'm tasting. If I love the food, I start making mental notes about what it will take to recreate it in my own kitchen.

Tyler's recipe for "5-in-1 Baking Mix" was the push that I needed to finally give my friend Julie's breakfast muffins a try. I'm excited to be able to tell you that the muffins were a complete success!

"Inside the Test Kitchen" is loaded with pictures that are super helpful. Before I started messing with things, I poured over the whole section related to the "5-in-1 Baking Mix" recipe. Tyler explained why it works and added extra notes in the margin, which happen to be written with a sharpie. Grab a copy for your kitchen HERE.

I combined my adaption of Tyler's "5-in-1 Baking Mix" with grated cheddar cheese, breakfast sausage, butter, milk, and egg. I gave it a stir and spooned it into muffin tins...20 minutes later, I had 20 of these gorgeous muffins! I have to mention that it also happened to be January 20th. I'm so tempted to call these things "20-20-20 Muffins" or "20 in 20 on 20 Muffins".

Enough about me and my strange habits...Here's the muffin recipe!

Breakfast Muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 lb. breakfast sausage, browned and cooled
8 ounces medium cheddar cheese, grated

Steps:
After you've got your sausage browned and cooled and your cheese grated, make sure your oven rack is in the middle of your oven. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your muffin tins.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the butter, egg, and milk.

Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, and stir until combined.

Mix in your cooled sausage and grated cheddar cheese. If the mixture is especially difficult to stir, feel free to add a touch more milk.

Spoon batter into muffin tins. Fill any empty slots with some water (about halfway will do).

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Remove muffins from tins and let rest on a rack until ready to serve or until completely cool. Store in the refrigerator in a ziplock bag. Makes 20 muffins.

I should mention that these muffins started flying off the cooling rack as soon as I removed them from the muffin tins! I have a feeling that I'll be making quite a lot of these in the years to come and I hope you will too.

Do you mark up your books?

Do you try to recreate recipes?

What was your latest kitchen success?

* I was provided with a review copy of this book by Blogging for Books. All thoughts are my own honest opinion.

Let's Bake: Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread

Last winter, I made it my goal to try out recipes using things that I always have on hand. There were coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, quick breads, muffins, and even a few "fancy" cakes. It turns out, these are great recipes for last minute potluck preparations.  

One of my favorite recipes that I discovered last winter came from the Taste of Home website. Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread has been very popular at my house this fall. I make it one loaf at a time. 

Let's get to it!

Gather our ingredients...It's the usual cast of characters! Measure out the dry ingredients and get some cheaters' buttermilk going. Just in case you're not familiar with cheaters' buttermilk, let me explain. You take regular milk and lemon juice and let it sit and you've got something that acts exactly like buttermilk in baking.

The exact trick when you need 1 cup of buttermilk is to put 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice into a measuring cup and then add enough regular milk to make it to the 1 cup mark.

This picture is totally unnecessary, but it's so pretty, I couldn't leave it out.

Now that our "buttermilk" has had some time to get it together, let's add the egg, oil, and vanilla. Give it a good stir.

Combine the wet with the dry.

Stir just until moistened. I added a splash more milk because my batter looked a bit too dry.

Sprinkle with raisins and fold them in very gently. Since we're telling secrets...I don't really like raisins or nuts in my baked goods. This bread is the exception. Add the raisins. 

Let the batter rest while we mix the cinnamon and sugar in a separate bowl.

Transfer half of the batter into a greased loaf pan. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Add the rest of the batter. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar.

It's almost time to pop it into the oven. But first, we take a butter knife and drag it through the batter to create pretty swirls of cinnamon sugar. Make sure you go all the way to the bottom of the batter!

It's ready for the oven!!!

I like to listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and sermons while I cook. Today called for a little audiobook time. Do you have a favorite audiobook?

The bread will rest for 10 minutes on a cooling rack and THEN we remove it from the pan.

I dig into it right away and then wrap the rest in cling wrap. I store it in the bread drawer.

This bread makes perfect toast. Add a little butter and you're all set! You should also know that after a week or so (if you have any left by then), it makes my favorite ever french toast.


Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread 
slightly adapted from Taste of Home

2 c flour
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 c buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 c vegetable oil
3/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 c raisins

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c sugar

PREHEAT OVEN TO 350. GREASE LOAF PAN.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

Whisk together buttermilk, egg, vegetable oil, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, mixing just until moistened. If batter looks too dry, add a little more milk.

Fold raisins into batter. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar.

Spoon half of batter into loaf pan, sprinkle with half of the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Add rest of batter, top with rest of cinnamon sugar. Cut through batter with a butter knife to create a swirl.

Bake at 350 for 55 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and bread is nice and brown.

Let cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and allow to continue cooling.  Once cool, wrap in cling wrap and store at room temperature.

Makes 1 Loaf

A Cookbook From Our Favorite Baker

Surely you've all heard of Joy the Baker by now! It's no secret that I love Joy. I have been reading her blog for the longest time and I talk about her as if she lives next door. Let's be honest, I definitely wish that she did.

When Joy's latest cookbook, "Homemade Decadence", came in the mail, I was excited to have it in my hands, but even more excited that it's a sign that Joy gets to keep doing what she loves. I'm so glad that she gets to do all of this baking for a living and that she chooses to blog her way through it.

This cookbook has some of the best pictures. I may be biased, but I really do love it! I was planning to sit down and mark down the recipes that I want to try out....but then I realized that I'd rather just grab this book on days when I feel like baking and whip something up because it looks good in that moment.

I think you'll find yourself wanting to do the very same thing!

This last Wednesday was one of those days. It was rainy and cold and dinner was in the crock pot. I had remembered seeing a recipe for Chai Tea Lattes in the book, so I pulled it out and got started.

My sister (who recently got into chai tea) came back from her piano lesson just as I was putting the milk on...She thought I saw her coming and decided to make her a drink. I WISH that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.

Needless to say, I added more milk! My sister had hers straight, without any coffee added. I had mine with the coffee, exactly as Joy suggested.

I used to work at a coffee shop where they had chai to rave about. Joy's chai is even better than that! It's strong and smooth and exactly what you want. I never thought to make chai this way, but I'm never going back. The trick is going to be NOT making it every single day.

My sister and I sat in the living room doing our own things while sipping on what is most definitely our new favorite drink...The rain kept coming and dinner kept cooking. I've e-mailed  Joy to ask her about sharing the recipe, so I'll share it as soon as I get the okay!

In the meantime, get your copy of Homemade Decadence HERE.

* I was provided with a review copy of this book by Blogging for Books. All thoughts are my own honest opinion.