Sunday, December 05, 2010

Two Fantastic Muffins—Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins with White Chocolate Chunks and Chocolate Chip Banana Gingerbread Muffins

Wow!  Those two titles for the muffins are quite the mouthful, but I must take this time to tell you about these muffins.  They are both SO good.  If you ever have an open can of pumpkin puree, do not hesitate to make these pumpkin muffins.  I am not the biggest white chocolate fan, so when I made these muffins, I tried some with white chocolate and some with dark chocolate.  The white chocolate muffins were the winner!  I got the recipe for these Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins with White Chocolate Chunks over at Amanda's Cookin'.  Amanda is one of my favorite bloggers/people out there in the cyber world.  Over the last few years that we’ve both been bakin’ and bloggin’, she has become one of my favorites!  We are kindred spirits.  Not only is Amanda stellar in the kitchen, but she is super crafty as well and has a separate blog for all her crafts--Crafts by Amanda  I’d remembered her posting these muffins when I was recently trying to decide what to do with some canned pumpkin puree I had in the fridge that needed to be used.  Amanda tried to convince me that the white chocolate in these muffins is divine.  It really was the taste winner when I tried the muffins both ways.

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I didn’t even photograph the dark chocolate ones.  White was the winner here.  The recipe for me made 12 regular sized muffins and 17 minis.  I followed the recipe exactly except that I used some salted butter I had, so I omitted the salt in the recipe.  The large muffins baked 17 minutes and the minis baked for 12 minutes.

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Last December I also made some White Chocolate Pumpkin Blondies from Amanda’s blog that were really good.  Hmmm, maybe I like white chocolate more than I thought I did. ;)  I don’t remember, but the recipe calls for white chocolate in the blondies and I don’t see any in the pictures of mine, but I did use it in the frosting.  I remember these blondies being really good.

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I’ve made a number of Amanda’s recipe before and they have always been great.  I’ve got a cookie of hers coming up soon, it has Nutella in it!

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The other muffins were some that I made today.  I had some overripe bananas sitting on the counter, but didn’t want to just make my usual banana muffins.  I was feeling like a little spice.  I Googled banana gingerbread and found a recipe for Chocolate Banana Gingerbread that I adapted in to muffins.  These are delicious.  They just have a really subtle banana taste.  The spices are nice and strong and you can definitely taste the molasses.  What really makes these even better is the chocolate chips!  I used whole wheat pastry flour in these instead of just all purpose flour.  Love the ever-so-slight nuttiness it gave to these as well.

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Chocolate Chip Banana Gingerbread Muffins, by Katrina, Baking and Boys! adapted from Chocolate Banana Gingerbread at How Sweet It Is

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup molasses

2 medium bananas, mashed

2 1/4 cups (270 grams) whole wheat pastry flour (you could use all purpose flour)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup lowfat buttermilk

3/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar, for sprinkles on each muffin

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.  Set aside.

Combine flour, salt, baking soda and spices in a bowl, whisk together to sift.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in molasses and mashed bananas. Add half of dry ingredients, mixing just until combined, then add buttermilk and beat. Add remaining dry ingredients just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Using a cookie scoop, spoon batter into each cup. Top with turbinado sugar. Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let tins sit on wire rack for 5 minutes.  Remove muffins from tin and left cool until cool enough to eat.  These are GREAT warm and still great the next day as well!

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I love these and right now am thinking I may never make regular banana muffins again, at least during gingerbread season!

Just in time for the holidays, I’ve got another CSN Stores giveaway coming up very soon!

13 comments:

Lisa said...

Oh why do you tempt me so and on fast Sunday too. Can you hear my stomach growling? I'll have to try those pumpkin muffins. My mom bought a big bag of cranberries and goodness knows I'm not using them all for sauce, so I'll use the leftover for these muffins (I'm thinking Christmas morning breakfast). Of course, there are also your banana gingerbread muffins that I now MUST try as well because I love anything gingerbready. Thank goodness my family will be there during the holidays to help me eat all the goods.

Pam said...

Oh my gosh! I can see why you will never make regular banana muffins again! They both look delicious!!!

CaSaundraLeigh said...

All of these goodies look fabulous--I am thinking you and Amanda should team up and sell your goodies. Just a thought! ;-)

Lisa Ernst said...

This post reminded me that I think pumpkin and white chocolate are a perfect pair, even superior to dark chocolate and pumpkin! Generally I never buy or use white chocolate but there are a couple of recipes that they are perfect for, and obviously this is one of them. (The other is a white chocolate chip lemon cookie from Dylan's Candy Bar in NYC.)

Unknown said...

Mmmm...that looks good! I would make BOTH of those, hopefully soon. :-)

Diana's Cocina said...

These sound perfect~I love a delicious muffin. I bet the aroma was amazing!

Deeba PAB said...

I love how you got such great ideas from Amanda and baked up a storm. Whit chocolate and cranberry=YUm, and oh my...those pumpkin ones are PURTY! Love the colour and flavour combinations!

CDC said...

I have to try these! I just made blueberry muffins this weekend, but when those are gone, these must be next!

Megan said...

They both sound devine and the color of those pumpkin ones are sooo pretty! I want to try both flavors now! :)

Amanda said...

Katrina - this is such a nice post, you are amazing. I swear we were separated at birth, even if we aren't the same age. LOL Thank you so much for the super sweet things you said here :) :) I've been having a rough few days so this means a ton to me!

Mimi said...

Both are festive muffins. I'm not much for white chocolate, but I do like it when paired with pumpkin.
Mimi

Anonymous said...

Your muffins look yummy! They're a mouthful to say, but I bet they make a nice mouth full! :-)

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