Nuttiness--Pecan Nuttiness!

1-21-10--This post is linked to Healthy Green Kitchen’s breakfast recipe blog carnival for Haiti.

Healthy Green Kitchen A Blog Post to Help Haiti

 

I AM what I eat.  I love nuts and I am pretty nuts!  If I had to pick a favorite nut, I'd actually have a hard time choosing.  I really can't think of a nut I don't like.  Pecans are WAY up there on the top of the list, along with walnuts, cashews, hazelnuts, peanuts, almonds, filberts, macadamia, see, I told you, I like them all! ;)  But seriously, pecans might be my favorite.  I really can't choose.  I'd have to say it's a toss up between pecans, walnuts and almonds.  Anyway---

A wonderful thing happened to me.  I was contacted by The Green Valley Pecan Company and asked if I'd like some of their pecans.  Hello?  YES!  ;)  They kindly sent me a bag that was gone all too quickly!  I thought and thought about what I should make to showcase pecans and many decadent, gooey, chocolaty, crunchy, yummy things came to my mind.  Sigh.  Decisions, decisions. 

As I kept snacking little by little on the pecans (Sam LOVES pecans and all nuts, too--thank goodness there's no nut allergies in our family, I don't know what I'd do!), but as I tasted one here and there and shared them with Sam, I decided to just do one of the most simple things that I LOVE with them and I made granola.  I could eat granola all day, every day--if I could. ; )  And I love nothing more than when I bite in to a nut in my granola.  Besides chocolate, I'm not sure if I like anything better. 

So I whipped up this EASY granola that I've come to love.  It's a recipe from Camilla Saulsbury at Enlightened Cooking.  Her simple granola is made on the stove top and has no added fat or oil.  You can change it up with all kinds of ingredients, which I have done, so after reading my blog entry here, GO check out hers on the link with her name.

 

My Version of Camilla's Stove Top Granola, adapted from Camilla Saulsbury by Katrina

2 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup nugget like grain cereal (like Grape Nuts)

1/4 cup ground flax meal

1 cup pecans, slightly chopped and lightly toasted (you can do this in the microwave on a microwave safe plate for about 1-2 minutes)

2/3 cup agave nectar, minus 2 tablespoons  (Camilla uses 2/3 cup brown sugar, I've also made this with about half honey and half agave and I've done mostly brown sugar with some honey, use what you like!)

2 tablespoons honey

1/3 cup apple juice

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large skillet on the stove at medium, bring the apple juice, agave and honey to a boil.  Add the oats, cereal, flax and pecans and stir it with a wooden spoon so everything is well mixed and coated with the juice/agave mixture.  Keep stirring and moving it around the pan for 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and add the salt and vanilla and stir together.  You can then let it sit out until cooled, but I actually stuck it in a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes.  This is NOT necessary, but I like really crunchy granola!  Without using the oven, the granola is still great, but more chewy.

I had some granola for breakfast and later for a snack, some vanilla yogurt with blueberries and more granola.  De-lish!  Love the pecans!  Check out The Pecan Store Blog and get your fix of all things pecans!  Well, maybe not quite all things, since you won't be able to taste them unless you make something yummy with them!  Thanks for the pecans, Green Valley!

I had enough pecans left to make some yummy cookies, so I made some Mrs. Field's applesauce oatmeal cookies that I got the recipe for from The Secret Recipe Blog by Ron Douglas.

I only made some slight changes to the recipe by using just a pinch or two of cloves instead of the 1/4 teaspoon in the recipe.  I also used 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans, instead of the 1 cup raisins in the recipe.  Gotta have the that nutty crunch!

 

These cookies taste great!  They have some applesauce as well as chopped apple (which I perfectly chopped uniformly with my Chop Wizard!)  One thing I really liked in these cookies was the lemon zest and honey and of course the pecans I added! 

Somebody's Stealing the Cinnamon Rolls!

Look what we found in our cinnmon rolls!

This cute little turtle.   The little sneak was trying to eat our cinnamon rolls!

So, really.  Every Monday night we have Family Night and we take turns with who (kids, Kevin and I and our friends, Bob and Tes) has treats for the night.  This past Monday, it was Taylor's turn for the treats and Sunday night as I tucked him in bed I asked him what he wanted to have or make for the treats for Family Night and out of no where he said, "Turtle Bread."  Does anyone else know what turtle bread is?  Well, I didn't either.  But he reminded me that in the Gold Medal ABC Baking Cookbook for kids that we borrowed from his preschool teacher not too long ago it said Turtle Bread for the letter T.  Creative juices flowing--I made a turtle out of bread!  We think he turned out pretty great.  He is made from the same roll mix we made the cinnamon rolls with.  I got this bread mix from Food Storage Depot, which is an online food storage company where you can get all kinds of things for---your home food storage.  They kindly sent me a couple of bread roll mixes because I linked their website on my blog.  The mix is LOVELY.  You just add some yeast and water to your mixer and let it knead together with the dough hook for a few minutes, cover the dough and let it rise, form whatever shape you want (cinnamon rolls here!).  Let them rise again, then bake.  The dough was a bit sticky after its short stint in the mixer but the nice thing is, you don't even really have to touch it. It rose up beautifully and was no longer too sticky to work with.   The cinnamon rolls were great!

Even the turtle thought so!

 

Cute, isn't he!  Taylor and I formed him (quite simple) and he went to town "painting" him with some food coloring and milk.  We used Q-tips to paint him.  With a sweet face like that, would you be able to eat it?

Taylor didn't want to and for a day he wouldn't even let anyone really touch it.  He actually wanted to keep it.  I explained to him and convinced him that the turtle would eventually get moldy and he wouldn't be able to stay.  Each of the boys tasted him.  Quite the carbolicious little guy!

I can see some fun bread dough animal shaping coming up!  Check out Food Storage Depot's website.

TWD--Very Mini Apple Tartlets and Nectarine and Mango

The Tuesday's With Dorie recipe for this week might possibly be the easiest recipe in Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours!  Thank you, Jessica from My Baking Heart for picking this recipe.  It was fun, EASY and YUMMY! 

On that note, I didn't actually DO as the recipe says.  Why?  Well, for the recipe we're supposed to 4 inch circles of puff pastry.  Puff pastry is a yummy, buttery, pre-made frozen pastry dough that is SO GOOD.  I love it.  I was afraid to make these because you could pile onions in them and I'd eat it, no--wait, I'm kidding!  If you know me, you know that I loathe onions, so that may be the one thing I wouldn't eat with puff pastry, but other than that, I love it!  I used it once for something and I ate a lot of it.  You know, like almost the whole sheet.  Not all in one sitting, but you know what I'm saying.  It's so buttery and flaky and good. 

SO--I decided to keep my "girlish figure" (ha, that was gone YEARS ago!), but I decided I'd better not make these with puff pastry.  What then?  Well, I used phyllo dough, pre-made shells.  The little mini ones, the ones I recently made with these Lazy Cook's Baklava.  I LOVE THESE, too!  At only 15 calories for each empty shell, I thought that sounded much better than whatever the amount is for puff pastry.  If you really want to know, check out Kim's post about these at Scrumptious Photography, she always puts the nutrition information for these treats on her blog.  Anyway, I used these--

Well, okay, they weren't filled with nuts when I made  my version of this week's Parisian Apple Tartlets, but I'll bet you could have figured that out! ;)

Simple, simple, simple.  I just cut up some apple (I used Granny Smith) in to tiny little chunks, sprinkled them with a little lemon juice and some brown sugar.  I filled each shell with apples, sprinkled a little more brown sugar on top and a little dot of butter to finish them off.  I only made enough to fill six shells, on purpose, then I filled six more with some nectarine I chunked up, sprinkled with granulated sugar also.  And since I actually have a mango right now, I filled the last three shells with some cut up sugared mango.  No measuring here.

Ready for a short stint in the oven---

  

I baked these for 10 minutes.  They were prefect.

Well, except for a couple of the nectarine ones, they apparently didn't quite make it.

Don't worry, they still tasted just fine! ; )

After they came out of the oven, I sprinkled the apple ones and a nectarine one with a little cinnamon (I've restocked from last week!).  If I'd have remembered before, I'd have actually sprinkled the apples with cinnamon before I baked them.  Either way, the apple ones were the clear winners, with the nectarine ones close behind.  Actually, neither should be outdone by the mango.   They were all three really good!  Need an appetizer for a shindig, these would be great!

Had to kick it up a little with the apple ones.

Mmmm, ice cream!  But something else?  Hmmm?

Caramel!  Now we're talkin'. 

I can only IMAGINE how good the puff pastry and apple would have been!  Sigh.  Someday.  Thanks for the great pick, Jessica.  Check out all the other blogs at the Tuesday's With Dorie site.   See ya next week for some ice cream!

Strawberry Goodness!

As strawberries are in season, I have a hard time passing up the large containers that are usually for sale at a good price.  Then I get home and am left with the task of just what to do with all of them in a short time!  Quite a few get tossed in the freezer for later use.  We are loving smoothies right now!

But this is what I made with some of them.  Yesterday I made some QUICK, homemade, low fat/low calorie good-enough-for-me strawberry frozen yogurt.   (It IS just a little icy after freezing overnight, but I like it!)

Quick, Easy, Homemade, Light Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

1  1/3 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced

1/4 cup agave nectar

2 ounces whipped topping (Cool Whip)--you could use more, this is all I had

2 cups fat free vanilla yogurt (I used Dannon light & fit)

Put strawberries and agave (or sugar) in gallon-size zip top freezer bag.  Pressing the extra air out, zip the bag closed.  Mash the strawberries and agave together in the bag.  (Fun for kids!)  Add the whipped topping, zip bag again and squeeze again to mix.  Add yogurt to the bag and mix until well blended.  Place in freezer to harden (2 to 4 hours).  After two hours, remove from freezer and squeeze mixture to make a creamier texture.  Serve after 2-4 hours for soft serve, or let sit on counter 15 minutes to soften slightly.

  

I got this idea from Recipezaar here.  This served nicely along size my next strawberry "creation" that I got from Joy the Baker blog.  It's strawberry coffee cake (for the full fat version, see the link to her blog).  It looks so good, but me being me, I had to cut some of the fat and calories out and make this just a little healthier (for me!).  So here is my version.

Strawberry Coffee Cake, by Katrina, adapted from Joy the Baker who adapted from Panache at Rose Hill  (My changes will be in red.)    

1 heaping cup sliced strawberries  (I used at least 1 1/2 cups)  I actually wish the strawberry layer was thicker, but it looks better over on Joy's blog so I'm not sure why)

1/3 cup sugar  (I used 1/4 cup agave nectar)

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons water

1/2 cup butter, softened  (1/4 cup salted butter--it's what I had) and 1/4 cup fat free vanilla yogurt

1 cup sugar  (I used organic evaporated cane juice sugar)

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour  (I used whole wheat pastry flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt  (Since I used salted butter, I just added a pinch of salt)

8 ounces sour cream  (I used light sour cream)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

a few drops of almond extract (optional)  (I would have liked more, but only put a few drops and can't taste it)

Topping:

3 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes  (I used salted butter)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour  (I used whole wheat pastry flour)

3 1/2 tablespoons sugar  (I used organic evaporated cane juice sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

To make the topping:

Combine all the topping ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly.  Set aside. 

To make the strawberry mixture:

Combine strawberries, the 1/4 cup of agave, water and cornstarch in a small saucepan.  Cook over low heat for 5 to 7 minutes (this only took a minute or two to thicken for me), stirring constantly until the sauce is thickened and strawberries are soft and somewhat broken down.  Set aside to cool. 

Grease and flour a 10×10-inch baking dish, knocking out excess flour, and set aside. 

To make the coffee cake:

Cream butter and sugar (and yogurt) until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla extract, and almond extract if you’re using it. 

Sift dry ingredients together.  Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter in 3 parts alternating with the sour cream in 2 parts, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Beat just until combined. 

Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan.  Spread the cooled strawberry mixture over the batter.  Spoon the remaining batter onto the strawberries and spread evenly.  Top with streusel topping and bake in the upper third of the oven.  Bake for 50-60 minutes (I only baked this for 40 minutes and think it was a little overdone, start checking after 30 minutes!), until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Kevin thought it tasted a little funny, but I like it.  I may just be excited to be eating "healthier" cake.

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AND--these aren't made with any extras for health and don't even have REAL strawberries, but need to share them with you. 

Have you seen these new M&M's? 

Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's.  Hmmm?  I saw these somewhere a few weeks ago and grabbed a little bag of them.  I tasted a few.  They are definitely candy, but not bad.  They really do taste like a candy version of pb&j.  After deciding to make cookies with them, I went in search of where I got them to get more.  I cannot find the little suckers anywhere.  It's kind of bugging me.  Were they at Walmart?  I go there a lot, but I cannot find them there.  The couple local grocery stores I shop at also don't have them.  They have disappeared.  I actually saw a commercial for them, too.  I'm sure they'll show up again sometime, somewhere.  In the meantime, I took the 2 ounces of them that I had and I combined them with some Strawberry Milkshake Oreos, crumbled up a bit and some peanut butter chips and I made one of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough recipes (the New York Times recipe!).  These were different and fun and very sweet from all the extra cookies and candy, but I thought they were pretty good.  I just wish I'd have had more of those illusive M&M's!  The kids ate them, so they must have been okay.  Kevin wouldn't even try them!  He doesn't like strawberries very much, especially strawberry candy flavored things.  Just the thought of those Strawberry Milkshake Oreos makes him shutter.  In hindsight (well, I actually thought about this before deciding on regular dough), but I think these would be great with peanut butter cookie dough as well.

***Update:  I have, since writing this, found the big (14 oz.?) bags of these M&M's at Walmart.  I swear they weren't there for a while.  Others are saying they've seen them at Target and Walgreens, too.  They definitely taste like candy if anyone is hoping they taste like a pb&j sammie or something.  They aren't bad in their own right. ;)

I made the full recipe  of the New York Times cookie dough, but only did the strawberry/peanut butter thing to half the dough, so Kevin could have a few good ol' chocolate chip cookies.  And can I just say again how much I love this recipe and these chocolate chip cookies!  I mean, just look at them---

Sigh, cookies! ; )

Scott's 11th Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Scott!  I cannot believe my first baby is 11 today.  Really, where does the time go??  He'll be in 6th grade this next year.  In summary, I'm getting old.  jk

Scott had a "family" birthday this year.  I made the mistake of starting when Scott was three years old and having birthday parties with friends and planned activities and such for Scott and the other three boys since then.  And I'm tired!  No really, we decided that the kids can have friend birthday parties every other year and we'll do our family birthday bash the other years. 

I am not sure Scott's ever eaten more in one day, but by the time his ice cream cake came around at the end of the day, he barely got some of it down.  We went to Steak N Shake for lunch and Scott ate a salad, onion rings (ewwee), a double cheeseburger and at least 3/4 of a HUGE milk shake.  THEN, Kevin took the three older boys to see the movie, Up, and I took Sam home.  While at the movie, the boys shared the most giant popcorn I've ever seen (although they didn't even eat half of it), because Kevin also bought them each their own box of candy.  Parker came home and said he didn't feel good.  He had all the same things for lunch (except fries instead of nasty onion rings).  He thinks he is as big as Scott and should get all the same things.  It's rather funny and I love that he wants to be just like his big brother.  But he only ate about half of everything, and only maybe 1/4 of the shake.  I'd wondered if they would even be able to eat the big dinner Scott decided on for his dinner a few hours later and my awesome ice cream "cake" I'd made.

Scott decided he wanted grilled steaks for dinner.  He went with Kevin to pick them out and they came back with 6 giant steaks (Bob and Tes came over for dinner).  We had all kinds of veggies and fruit and salads with dinner, but Scott could only eat about half his steak and some blueberries.  We waited about an hour until it was late enough to have dessert.  THIS---

Super Duper Ice Cream Cake (without cake)

On the bottom is a brownie layer, then Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream, then Super Fudge Brownie Ice Cream, then Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and finally in scoops all over the top are those same three flavors and a Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Ice Cream (all Blue Bunny brand).  Drizzled on the top is chocolate and caramel flavored Smuckers Magic Shell,  plain and peanut M&Ms and colorful sprinkles.  Does this not look like the coolest birthday cake ever?  I thought it turned out pretty cool!

Ready for some singing and blowing out of the candles.

Scott getting his pucker ready for the big blow out!  (Hurry, the ice cream is melting! jk)

Do not be grossed out by the nasty, dirty blinds in the background!  If you have shades right next to your dinner table, how do yours look?  Maybe you should inspect them and clean them if you're going to be taking pictures.  Okay, huh.  How about that?  (Okay, I feel better now.)

  

Got 'em all with one big blow!

I was a little worried about how hard it might be to cut the "cake".  Would the brownie still be frozen solid?  It actually cut beautifully!  It had been out of the freezer for about 15 minutes.  Once I started serving it, I didn't get any more pictures, other than this--

I'm happy with the way the layers turned out.  After slicing Scott the first piece that was bigger than his head, he STILL added more Magic Shell to his bowl.  What is up with that stuff?  I remember my dad and brothers loving it, too.  Do NOT look at the "nutrition" label.  That stuff has 18, count them, 18 grams of fat per 2 tablespoons!  What in the world is that stuff made of?  Well, you only have a birthday once a year, right!  Scott ate about 95% of his serving.  When I served Parker his, he complained that Scott got a much bigger piece.  We didn't give in and just gave Parker his smaller serving.  Parker ended up eating only about 5% of his!  Silly boy!

Next time you've got a birthday dessert to make and your loved one(s) don't like cake, especially frosting, make this--everyone will love it! ; )

And now, some more pictures of Scott's big day.

After playing this Punch Out game with the boys for a while, Kevin told me you really get quite a workout from it.  Maybe I'll try it sometime.  I can just see me now.  ha

Hi, Taylor.

Scottie excitedly exclaimed, "I got a brown box!"  It was more Wii stuff.

"Woohoo, another brown box!"

I gave Scott a bunch of candy and goodies, his own box of cereal and a 2 liter of root beer that he doesn't have to share with anyone.  He's pretty pleased with it.  The dentist won't be.  Sigh.

We love you, Scottie!

A Delicious Smoothie (With POM Wonderful) and Awesome Bran Muffins

On Saturday I made a most delicious smoothie that I must tell you about.  Besides the fact that it had the tasty POM Wonderful pomegranate juice that was so kindly given me by the POM Wonderful people, the combo of other things I put in this smoothie was just divine.  Give me a little umbrella for my drink and a lawn chair on a cruise ship and I would have really been in heaven.  ; )

I served up 5 six ounce drinks to the kids and I with this and it was great.  I didn't take time for very great pictures, but just trust me--delicious!

POM Wonderful Colada Smoothie

1 cup skim milk

¼ cup fat free vanilla yogurt

3 ounces POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice

2 ½ oz. frozen pina colada concentrate

4 ounces frozen mango chunks

3 ounces frozen banana (about 1 small)

2 tablespoon soy protein powder

about 10 ice cubes

Mix all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Makes 5---6 ounce drinks

SOOOO Good!

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Anna down south a' here at Cookie Madness recently made some bran muffins and I thought they sounded really good, so I made them--with my own little twist, of course!  You see, her version had the bran soaked in coffee and if you know me, you know that I don't "do" coffee.  I could easily have just soaked the bran in water or milk or something, but then it hit me--coffee--hmm, hot cocoa!  Oh yes, I decided to soak the bran in hot cocoa, but this wasn't just any hot cocoa--it was some delicious gingerbread hot cocoa I'd found at World Market at Christmastime.  I thought the added ginger would be great in the muffins--and it was!

These muffins turned out fantastic.  They were moist and very flavorful.  I tasted just a hint of the cocoa and the ginger.  I love a good healthy bran muffins.  These would have been great with added raisins (if you like raisins in your baked goods) and even some chopped walnuts or pecans.  I can't wait to make them again sometime!  Anna adapted the recipe from Joy of Baking and now I've adapted it.

Bran Muffins—adapted from Joy of Baking and Anna at Cookie Madness

3/4 cups wheat bran
1.2 cup Gingerbread Hot Cocoa (or regular flavor)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon mild molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats 
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons fat free milk
6 tablespoons buttermilk or sour milk** — sour milk by adding 1 tsp. vinegar or lemon juice, let sit for 5 minutes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners or spray with cooking spray.

Combine bran and hot cocoa. Set aside.

Cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer.
Beat in the egg, vanilla and molasses. Beat in the bran.

Mix together the flour, oats, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and powder.

Combine the milk and buttermilk (or soured milk).

Add the flour mixture, alternately with milk, to the bran mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Fill the muffin cups almost to the top, sprinkle with some turbinado sugar (if desired) and bake for about 14 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

Makes 12 muffins

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More still to come.  Busy week.  Lots of goodies!

TWD--Cinnamon Squares

A little word to the wise about when a Tuesday's With Dorie recipe for the week is called Cinnamon Squares-- check your supply of cinnamon and make sure you aren't going to run out before making the recipe last minute.  I'm just saying.  ; )

Okay, so the recipe for Cinnamon Squares this week was chosen by Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures and I thought/think the recipe looks like a good one in the book--Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  I waited until Monday to make this.  And would you believe I ran out of cinnamon!?  I seriously only had about a teaspoon of cinnamon left out of my 18 oz. container from Costco that I knew was getting low, but what's a girl to do when school's out and all four boys are home.  I'm certainly not going to drag them all to the store!  So I made do. 

I made cupcakes.  After reading the P&Q's about problems with the cake not fully cooking in the middle and the chocolate chips sinking to the bottom, I decided that cupcakes would probably take care of those problems.  Plus I thought that cupcakes would be cute.  Little did I know how cute--Read and look on....

See--cute.

No?  Okay, how about this?

 

Well, they look good.  Cute cupcake liners.  Still--not quite the cute you're hoping for.  Okay, this.

 

See.  I piped the chocolate on one cupcake and now it's cute.    Still, that's it?  Well, I was excited to see what the inside looked like.  Did my chips sink?  Out of the 12 cupcakes this made, I chose one to slice open and what are the odds that THIS would happen?

 

Perfecto!

Not only did the swirl come out nicely, it made a perfect smile!  If I would have sliced the cupcake in any other direction, it would not have looked like this.  So I had to do something fun with it.

 

"Hey, Blue Eyes, you come here often?" she smiled coyly.  I mean, come on, how cool is that?!  Okay, get over it Katrina, it's just a cupcake.  After slicing through a couple more, NONE came out as nice as this one, but the swirl didn't sink clear to the bottom as many mentioned about their cakes.  I did sprinkle the chocolate chips with a little flour, which must have helped.

There you have it, but there a couple things about the recipe I must let you know.  When I discovered that I was just about out of cinnamon, I searched my cupboards and found a little container of a cinnamon/sugar mixture that I'd probably saved from making snickerdoodles long ago.  You must save that for future toast, you know.  It was at most 2 tablespoonfuls.  I took that and mixed the rest of the cinnamon I had and added a little more sugar to it.  I used that to sprinkle in the middle of each cupcake with the mini chocolate chips, but there was not enough to add cinnamon to the cake batter.  There was actually only enough to sprinkle on 8 cupcakes and four of them only have chips in the middle.  The ones with the cinnamon are actually better and that is saying a lot from me because I don't really love cinnamon and chocolate together.  Maybe with these it's because of all the other changes I made to the recipe to try to make it a little bit "healthier".  I'm just that way, I've got to cut things where I can and add this and that--mostly just to see if I can make it work.  These worked with the changes I made and are pretty darn good.  I am interested to see how they are the next day.

Here are the changes I made:

1  3/4 cups all purpose flour---I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole milk---I used skim milk

I left out the espresso

2 large eggs---I used 3 tablespoons of Egg Beaters egg whites and 1 large egg

10 tablespoons butter---I used 4 tablespoons butter and 6 tablespoons fat free vanilla yogurt

I used 3 oz. mini chocolate chips

6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate---I used milk chocolate--and it's good!

These are good.  Someday I will make this recipe with more cinnamon!  Check out what everyone else did at the Tuesday's With Dorie site.   Thanks, Tracey.  You can get the recipe on the link to her DELICIOUS blog above.

Stay tuned, I've got a slew of yumminess to post coming up this week!