Spiced Apple Cider and Banana Muffins

Want a yummy, healthy muffin?  Here you go.

We have some apple cider and I have lots of very ripe bananas, but what really got me with these is that they are pretty healthy and I was able to use some yogurt that I have and need to use.  I changed up quite a bit a recipe that I found at the Eating Well website.  The recipe called for apple butter, but I used banana and I cut a little bit of the oil in the recipe.  You can get the recipe from Eating Well on their link.  But here's my muffins.

Spiced Apple Cider and Banana Muffins, by Katrina Smith, adapted from Eating Well, Winter 2004

Streusel:

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

2 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts

Muffins:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1  1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1 large egg

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup very ripe banana, mashed (2 small bananas)

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

1/3 cup spiced apple cider

1/3 cup nonfat Greek Yogurt

2 overflowing tablespoons canola oil

1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line muffin cups with paper liners or spray with cooking spray.  I made 11 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins and lined them with paper liners. 

In a small bowl, combine the streusel ingredients.  Mix the butter in with your fingers until well combined. 

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and brown sugar until smooth.  Then whisk in the bananas, syrup, apple cider, yogurt and oil.  Fold the wet ingredients into the dry with a rubber spatula just until combined.  Scoop the batter into the muffin cups.  Sprinkle with the streusel (I only put streusel on the 11 bigger muffins.)

Bake the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the larger ones for 14 minutes.  Cool in muffin pan for a few minutes.  Then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

Have some hot apple cider with one of these!  I made Wassail from this recipe at Allrecipes.  I only made half the recipe.  Love the smell of it brewing on the stove!

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Sam's new favorite pasttime---

Completely dismantling the couch downstairs and then sitting and watching Max and Ruby or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  It isn't very fun to put back together, almost like a puzzle, but doggonit, he's CUTE!

He's so proud of his accomplishment!

Then there's Bob.  Our friend, Bob.  He's pretty proud here, too, after all, he's got Hostess Sno Ball BOB Cakes named after him! ;)

TWD--All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

For the month of November, as TWD bakers, we are so kindly allowed to post any of the month's four recipes in any order we choose.  It worked out nicely that after I decided to make the All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake it would be perfect for our friend, Tes' birthday.  I just realized we forgot to take a picture of Tes with a candle in her slice of cake.  We sang to her earlier in the evening, but forgot when it was time for dessert.  Whoops!  Tes' birthday is really on Halloween.  We had the cake Monday night. 

This bundt cake was chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty.  You can get the recipe for this bundt cake on her blog, or you can just get Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours and have a ton of great recipes at your fingertips! 

I followed the recipe, even using freshly grated nutmeg for the first time.  I used ground ginger instead of fresh.  And in place of the one cup of cranberries, I used 1/2 cup of cranberries and 1/2 cup fresh pomegranate arils (about 1/2 a POM).  Love POMs!  The cake came perfectly out of the bundt pan (some others mentioned sticking problems.).  All I did was spray the pan with cooking spray.  The cake sure left a wonderful smell in the house while it was baking!  Mine only baked for 50 minutes.  Dorie suggests 60-70 minutes.  It passed the knife insertion test,  so out it came.  Perfect!

I love my Chop Wizard, it chopped the apples into the perfect little tiny squares.

 

I recently made some pumpkin cream cheese ribbon bread that wasn't "ribboning" very well, so I swirled it around and made pumpkin cream cheese swirl bread.  The recipe had some orange zest in the cream cheese, and I really liked it.  I have the recipe if anyone wants it.  The bread was great and quite moist and pumpkiny flavorful!  Where was I going with this?  Oh yes, orange zest and pumpkin!

I decided to make an orange icing for the bundt cake.  I had a little butter sitting on the counter, so I threw that in as well as some powdered sugar, pinch of salt, orange zest, some orange juice and cream.  It tasted great!

Orange Icing, by Katrina

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon orange zest

2 tablespoons orange juice

2 tablespoons butter, softened

pinch salt

6 tablespoons cream (or to desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients together and whisk until smooth and no lumps remain.  Drizzle over cake.

Love the pecans in this cake and on the top.  The cake has many great flavors.  Tes and I loved it!  The rest of the family---pppbbbbttt!  The boys didn't even try it. (They had a little ice cream and MORE Halloween candy!  Is it gone yet?  jk)  Kevin ate a little courtesy piece, then told me he doesn't really like cranberries.  (Never knew that, he loves cranberry juice!)  I loved the juicy POMs with their little crunch.

I gave Tes a big hunk of the cake to take home. 

Great bundt cake!

Thanks for the great pick, Britin!  Hey, speaking of bundts.  Do you like big bundts?  Mary at The Food Librarian does.  She loves (it may now be a love/hate relationship) bundts so much that since October 15th, she has been posting a bundt cake per day on her fabulous blog, in honor of the upcoming National Bundt Cake Day, November 15.  Why is that date important?  Hmm, yes, someone is having a BIG birthday that day.  It's me, it's me.  I just think it's so nice of Mary to make so many cakes in honor of my birthday.  Wow.  (jk)

Lovin' the bundts, Mary!  Check out her blog, if you haven't!

Happy Halloween! (Caramel Pecan Brownies and more Rice Krispies Treats!

Happy Halloween from a couple of nerds!   (No, I don't have a witches hat on, that's a decoration on the door.)  You can't see my lovely white socks with clod-hoppy black shoes, also my nerdy make up job of blue eye shadow and really red, poorly caked on red blush and lipstick .  Classic!

 

There's a "kick me" sign on his back.  Kevin was a perfect nerd.  I just went along with it. ;)

We had Darth Vadar and Obi Wan Kenobi at our house.  And a basketball player.

Then we had a very uncooperative Candy Corn.

This is really how Sam trick-or-treated.  Just wearing regular clothes.  I supposed at least the shirt was orange!

Happy Candy kid!

And the loot.  Their pumpkin buckets were stuffed to the top after trunk-or-treating at our church and then hitting up the neightborhood door to door.  (Sam stayed at home for the door to door stuff with the big nerd!)

Big Bro and Little Bro.  This is a cute picture.

Pictures from the school Halloween Party parade on Friday.  I also hung out in Taylor's classroom for his party and took lots of pictures.

Taylor's teacher, Mrs. Heider, was a KU Jayhawk!

Classroom treats--some gluten free cupcakes (a girl in the class has celiacs) and some really cute mummy cookies.  Oh yeah, I made those.  Cute, easy.  Sugar Cookies cut with gingerbread boy cutter.  White frosting, then piped on white chocolate and red hot eyes.  I saw the idea for these here at Family Corner.  This great website is run by none other than the amazingly talented Amanda of Amanda's Cookin'--a fellow foodie blogger and person I consider a friend I haven't met yet!

Some friends of ours had us over Friday night for a little Halloween shindig.  I brought some treats.

Literally, Halloween Oreo Rice Krispies Treats.  Same recipe as these Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats, but with no caramel and chocolate on top. 

I also made some most delicious Caramel Pecan Brownies.  (I know, I can't seem to get off the turtle/caramel-pecan kick!

THESE. ARE. BETTER. THAN. GOOD!

I used my favorite brownie recipe---it's the Dorie Greenspan Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies.

Caramel Pecan Brownies, by Katrina adapted from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 to 3/4 cup pecans,  whole and toasted

24 Kraft caramels (hello--unwrapped!)

4 tablespoons cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line an 8x8 inch square baking pan with foil so that edges of foil hand over the sides slightly.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.

Melt butter and cocoa in saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk together, remove from heat when melted and combined.  Let sit 3-5 minutes.  Whisk in eggs, then sugar and vanilla just until combined.  Add flour and salt.  Stir just until combined.  Spread half the batter evenly over bottom of pan. 

Put caramels and cream in a glass microwave safe bowl.  Melt in 30 second intervals, stirring between each.  When melted and stirred together until smooth, pour caramel over bottom brownie layer.  Line the caramel layer with the pecans (line them up like little soldiers in rows).  Add the remaining batter to a plastic sandwich bag.  Snip a little off one corner and pipe the remaining batter evenly over the top (this was so much easier than trying to evenly spread the batter over the sticky caramel!).  Bake for 25-35 minutes (test for brownie crumbs on toothpick.  I think mine baked for 30 minutes, but I always start checking before that!)  Cool completely on wire rack, then for most awesome fudginess, refrigerate for a couple hours before cutting into desired size pieces.

 

These were a huge hit at the Halloween party we brought them to.  Hope ya'll had a wonderful Halloween, too! 

TWD--Cherry--Nope, Fudge Brownie---Yep,Torte?

I did not make the Cherry part of this week's chosen TWD recipe, Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte.  I also did not make the mousse.  The recipe was chosen by April of Short + Rose.  You can get the full cherry laden, mousse-y recipe on her blog. 

I actually kind of like cherry and chocolate together, but my husband does not--at all.  He even makes a nasty face when we pass by the boxes of cherry cordials at the stores during the holidays.  I didn't think the boys would like it either.  And the mousse, well, sounds de-lish, but I decided against the cream cheese, mascarpone and heavy cream.  After looking at the richness of the brownie recipe, I just thought we didn't need all the extra fat involved with the mousse.  Maybe someday.  Yes, I'm sure someday we'll "NEED" that fat.  (eye roll)

SO, I halved the brownie recipe, scooped three ounces of batter into six ramekins, injected (with a pastry bag) the batter of each one with some ooey, melty caramel (12 unwrapped caramels and 1 1/2 tablespoons cream--melted together).  I wanted them to be more on the underdone side, so they baked for 19 minutes. 

Mmm, grab a fork and dig in.   Um, no, not yet.  They need something more.  Okay, my plan all along was turtles!  I don't know what it is, but I've really been in to caramel lately (my recent Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Rice Krispies Treats and Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats to name a few things).  I almost feel like I cannot have something caramel without nuts, specifically pecans.  BUT, I made these individually like this so the boys could all have a snack and we have a few here who don't like nuts (or so they say ;).  So I removed the brownies from each ramekin with just a little lifting with a spoon and they all came out nicely.  (Whew.)

Um---YUM!  But, that's not all!  Since I was skipping the mousse, I wanted to "challenge" myself with something, so I did something I hadn't done before and I whipped some cream (using  my arm and hand, a whisk, a bowl, some cream and a tablespoon of powdered sugar).  I feel a little proud about this!  After just a short time and a little arm pain, I had fresh whipped cream!

Some may know, I grew up a Cool Whip girl and I cringe a little to tell you that well, I still prefer Cool Whip to the real stuff.  But we had the fresh real stuff with these brownies!  After a nice dollop of whipped cream, whoever wanted to sprinkled a generous amount of pecans over the top and then just because it seemed like the right thing to do, another drizzle of some caramel.  Oh, and the boys, of course, had to have some sprinkles on theirs!

 

This. was. good!

I would now like to try this recipe as just some regular brownies sometime.  Thanks for the fun pick, April.  Feel free to check out the other "tortes" at the Tuesday's With Dorie blog.  I can't wait to see all the mousse tortes out there!

A Very Random Post Because I'm a Little Behind and Some Blogger Linky Love

 

Lil' Smokies Mummies--the boys loved these.  Lil' Smokies sausages and Pillsbury crescent rolls cut into thin strips.  Spooky eyes those mummies!  Wait a second, those aren't mummies, those are babies wrapped in swaddling clothes.  No.  Okay, they're mummies.

And I made mummy pizza for dinner tonight.

 

Used string cheese for the cheese.  Guess what Parker wants to be for Halloween?  Yep, a mummy.  I don't know if I can get the string cheese to wrap all the way around him.  Hmm, Pillsbury crescent rolls?  No.  Well, ya'll are no fun.  I'll have to see what else we can come up with! ;)  Okay, moving on.

I didn't take any photos, but I made this delicious Black Bean and Sweet Corn Soup with Cilantro and Lime that I found at Maria's blog, Two Peas and their Pod.  It was SO good.  I cut her recipe in half and added some chopped chicken for a little added protein.  I even made homemade tortilla strips as Maria suggested.  Love them.  Great recipe.

I also made a yummy Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter Soup from Nick's blog, The Peanut Butter Boy.  It's a thick soup and I even added an extra cup of chicken broth, but it also makes a great sauce for pasta.  I enjoyed on top of some spaghetti squash and with some sauteed spinach stirred in.  Good stuff--the peanut butter in it was awesome!

 

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Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Nutella), recipe from Holly at Phe/MOM/enon, which she got from a Gale Gand book.  This is so good!  It "hardens" up a little a few days after making it, but is still spreadable.  It has a little bit stronger hazelnut flavor, but it's good.  If you love Nutella, you've gotta try this.

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Taylor's birthday.  Believe it or not, I didn't post very many pictures from his actual  birthday.  He wanted to make his own cake--chocolate, and decorate it.  And decorate it he did!  I let him go to town with the sprinkles!

We  made the ever popular and simple Crazy Cake.  Where did I originally get this recipe?  None other than--Anna at Cookie Madness.  It's made right in the baking pan. 

I let him do this last year, too.  Whatever holiday sprinkles I had, he sprinkled them.  You're only 6 once, so live it up!

I love this next picture.  Parker found a couple of cool rocks at school.  He decided to wrap them up and give them to Taylor for his birthday.  He worked so hard on the "card" he made to wrap them in and give them to him and was so excited.  That's true brotherly love.

Another birthday--over.

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These are some really good Blue Cornmeal Pancakes I made recently.  I got the recipe from Marye at Baking Delights.  She made hers with blueberries.  I did not.  But these are good.  Guess where the recipe is from?  Mesa Grill's Cookbook.  Marye added lemon zest.  So did I.  These were good pancakes.

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This little stinker.  He was being awfully quiet the other day.  Never a good sign.  He got Kevin's laptop off the floor near the bed, got up on the bed and was working on something very important, just like Daddy does!

  

If that's not the look of a Little Stinker, I don't know what is!

He's starting to not like me taking so many pictures of him, especially when he's "in trouble".  Love this little stinker!

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Hang on, I'm almost done.  For now.

My friend April came to visit and brought me these awesome cookies.  The boys gobbled them up!  April has many talents, one of which is cake and cookie decorating.  I thought these were awesome!  Thanks, April.

When April brought me those cookies, another friend of mine,  Meagan, came with her.  Meagan has a fun blog called Domestic Wonder.  She brought me some cookies, too.  They are good and different.  They are made with a spice cake mix.  I've made cake mix cookies before--chocolate and yellow cake mixes.  But I'd have never thought to try spice cake.  Check out the recipe on her blog.  She also posts other recipes and lots of fun, cute, easy ideas of crafts and activities to do with kids.  She has a cute little boy who is two and another one on the way!  Thanks for the cookies, Meagan!

Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats

Really, need I say more?  Rice Krispies Treats with a thin Oreo cookie layer on the bottom, Halloween Oreos broken up and mixed in the treats, a layer of gooey caramel with a chocolate ganache on top--Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats!

I feel like these didn't photograph as well as the Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Rice Krispies Treats I recently made and posted, but if you like Oreos, these are awesome!  These, as well as the others, seem so rich to me that just a small cut square is a perfect bite (or two).  And then, try not to snitch a little more.  To me, these are like having a Fun Size candy bar and they are SO good!  I'm just going to say--play around with the Rice Krispies Treat recipe, you'll be surprised and amazed and how many good and different options there are for them.  They are one of my favorite goodies to make--and so easy--no baking required.  You could leave off the caramel and chocolate ganache and just add Oreos to the Rice Krispies, but dang, that caramel is good!

I like these refrigerated, the caramel is still gooey, but more set, but I also love when they are room temperature and the caramel is more ooey gooey!  You decide.  Wanna know what I did to make these?  Okay.

Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

10 Oreo cookies

2 tablespoons butter, melted

9 ounces marshmallows

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 ounces (4-5 cups) Rice Krispies Cereal

7 Oreo cookies, roughly chopped

24 caramel candies, unwrapped (duh!)

1/4 cup cream

6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons cream

More Oreo cookies for top (4-6), broken up or chopped

Line a 9x9 inch pan with foil.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.  Set aside.

In bowl of food processor, grind Oreos finely.  Add melted butter and combine together.  Sprinkle into pan and flatten evenly.  Set aside.

Melt marshmallow and butter in large saucepan or microwave safe bowl and stir until combined well.  Add cereal and mix well.  Fold in the 7 chopped cookies.  Spread in pan over Oreo layer.  Press down evenly using a potato masher sprayed with cooking spray--works great! 

In small saucepan, melt caramels and cream together until smooth and gooey.  Pour over Rice Krispies.  In small microwaveable bowl (or small saucepan), heat cream to just boiling.  Pour over chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl.  Let sit for a minute, then stir with a wire whisk until smooth and glossy.  Spread over caramel layer.  Sprinkle with broken/chopped Oreos.  Put in refrigerator until chocolate layer is hardened and set.  Remove from pan using foil edges.  Cut into desired size pieces.

 

These are as good as you are thinking! 

Oh, I meant to tell you the reason I decided to do an Oreo crust on the bottom of these.  The day I made them, I received this----in the mail.

 

I received this fun, cute 4-cup food processor from Cuisinart.  When I attended the Food BlogHer Conference last month in San Francisco, they gave us a coupon for one of these food processors!  How cool is that?  I was excited to try it out and had to grind up some Oreos!  I like that it is small, sometimes I just don't need to get out my big processor.  Thanks, Cuisinart and BlogHer!

TWD--Sweet Potato Biscuits and/or Pumpkin Biscuits

I made half a batch of the Sweet Potato Biscuits chosen by Erin of Prudence Pennywise for Tuesday's With Dorie this week.  They are good biscuits, but I learned that no one here really likes biscuits.  Well, I do.  But I shouldn't eat half a batch of sweet potato biscuits.  I only wish they actually taste like sweet potatoes.  I didn't think they really had much more of a taste than regular biscuits.  I used real steamed sweet potatoes that I pureed, instead of canned.  I pulsed the dry ingredients and cold butter in the food processor, carefully.  It worked great.  I carefully folding the sweet potato in with a fork.  I also added about 1/2 tablespoon of cream to get the dough together and moist.  And I added a pinch of nutmeg.  (Can't taste it.)   **Update, write up was Monday.  Tuesday--today, the sweet potato in the biscuits is much more noticeable in taste!  There may be some peanut butter on these in the very near future!

I thought these were good warm out of the oven with some butter.  Good pick, Erin, I'm glad I made these.

But that's not the end of the story.

On Saturday, we had a little birthday party for Taylor, it was the one where friends are invited.  I planned it a little too late to get very many of his friends to come.  But I think it worked out great.  His best little buddy, Joey came and together with Scott and Parker, we helped them each carve a pumpkin and then as Taylor wanted, they all got to frost and decorate a cupcake.

Picture intermission----

Taylor and Kevin thought it was fun to leave some of the guts hanging out of the pumpkin's face.  Taylor and Joey drew a picture of a jack-o-lantern face on a piece of paper and Kevin and I cut them out.

Kevin actually got Scott to pose for a picture and it looks good.  This is rare.  Yay!  Scott cut his pumpkin all by himself, although he made me do most of the gutting.  No one likes to gut a pumpkin.  Go figure.  Actually, I loathe it, too.

Parker drew his face on a piece of paper, too, and we used a star cutter to cut one of the eyes.  He did some of the cutting himself and I helped with some.

Sam napped through the pumpkin carving (thank goodness!), but he was excited to see them when he woke up.  I love this next photo.  Sam LOVES the Flip Camera, which I affectionately called "The Bertolli"  (Thanks BlogHer and Bertolli who gave me the camera when I got to go to the dinner sponsored by Bertolli at St. Supery Winery on my trip to San Francisco last month.)  Sam can use the camera with ease and he's only 2!  He gets it out of my purse now when we're at the store (instead of my cell phone, which would drive me nuts!).  Anyway, Sam grabbed "the Bertolli" so he could take pictures of the pumpkins just like his Daddy was.  I love how you can see their reflection in the (dirty) window in this picture.

The cupcakes I made were from a yellow cake mix.  But I decided to make part of the batter orange (in color) and part of it I added some cocoa.  This is what the cupcakes turned out like.

I made some chocolate frosting using the recipe on the Hershey's cocoa container.  The boys when to town.

It's all about the candy and sprinkles on top at our house!

Sam's got "The Bertolli" right there with him.

Didn't they all do a great job?  Oh, kidding, these are the ones I did.

Back to TWD Biscuits!  I decided just for the heck of it that after carving four nice sized pumpkins to just cut off the flesh from all the eyes, noses and mouths and cook the pumpkin and use it for the biscuits.  It made exactly one cup of pumpkin puree that I drained in a tea towel in the fridge overnight.  It was perfect puree.

But if you know me, I didn't just make regular pumpkin biscuits.  (No, I didn't add chocolate this time, although, hmmm? ;)

I wanted the biscuits to be kind of scone-like and I wanted to really get a sweet cinnamon flavor.  While again I didn't think the pumpkin taste was very noticeable, I did get some really nice "biscuits" that were even better the next day!

Here's the biscuits after I just brushed the tops with some cream and sprinkled some turbinado sugar on them.

 

Then I tried them as I sometimes think of biscuits--with butter and honey.

Good, but still not what I wanted. 

THIS is what I wanted them to be like.

I made a very simple icing with powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, a little cream and some cinnamon.  These were great!  Dorie mentions that these are good when completely cool.  I thought these were even great the next day.  They were flaky, but dense and moist and the icing added just the sweetness I was looking for.  I had read on the P&Q board that Laurie had asked Dorie about using pumpkin and she said to add some extra flour and sugar.  So I did. 

I iced 9 of the 15 biscuits.  I also added cinnamon to the dough, but not quite enough.  Would I make these again?  Probably, as they seemed to be a perfect, quick way to make a breakfast treat when there's just not enough time for cinnamon rolls.  So thanks again for the fun pick this week, Erin!  Check out the other TWD blogger's biscuits, too!

Come back later this week for some more amazing Rice Krispy Treats I've made.  In case you missed it, I recently made and posted these killer treats!  If you can imagine it, I've kicked them up another notch!