Made By Melissa

This recipe comes from the lovely Ina Garten. Who doesn’t love The Barefoot Contessa? Seriously, especially her baked goods. A lot of her recipes intimidate me, but this one is one I have made several times now, both in cake form and as muffins.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 extra-large eggs at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups sour cream (I used low fat)
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• For the streusel:
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts, optional (I did not use this time)
• For the glaze:
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons real maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan. Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Finish stirring with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.

For the streusel, place the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and butter in a bowl and pinch together with your fingers until it forms a crumble. Mix in the walnuts, if desired.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Carefully transfer the cake, streusel side up, onto a serving plate. Whisk the confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup together, adding a few drops of water if necessary, to make the glaze runny. Drizzle as much as you like over the cake with a fork or spoon.

To make 12 muffins, I halved the recipe- everything divides evenly except the eggs, I used 2 large. Using my Pampered Chef medium scoop, I put one scoop of batter in the bottom of the muffin cup, sprinkled 1/2 teaspoon of streusel and topped with another scoop of batter and 1 teaspoon of streusel. If you like a lot of streusel, don’t half the recipe for that and use more, but the maple glaze is very sweet.

I was looking for some recipes to use my new Pampered Chef mini-muffin tin and Joelen sent me this one. These cute little muffins are very good and the perfect size for snacking. I brought these along with the cinnamon-apple mini-muffins to work for a treat over the weekend. These weren’t the prettiest muffins when they came out of the oven, so I added the almond glaze.

Raspberry Almond Mini-Muffins

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter or margarine
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/4 cup raspberry preserves

Almond Glaze

• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 to teaspoons milk
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in Classic Batter Bowl. Stir melted butter, milk, egg and almond extract into dry ingredients, mixing until well combined.
Spray Deluxe Mini-Muffin Pan with nonstick cooking spray. Fill prepared muffin cups using Medium Scoop (1 scoop per muffin cup). Press approximately 1/2 teaspoon raspberry preserves into top of muffin batter. Gently fold batter over most of preserves.
Bake 12-14 minutes or until light golden brown or Cake Tester inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 5 minutes. Carefully remove from pan, cool on a wire rack. Once cool, combine ingredients for the glaze and drizzle over the top.

I modified this recipe for cinnamon muffins from allrecipes.com to make apple cinnamon mini-muffins. These little muffins had just the right amount of sweetness and went perfectly with a cup of coffee. I brought these to work, along with the raspberry-almond mini-muffins.

Apple Cinnamon Mini-Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup butter, melted  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 -1 cup chopped apple (I used granny smith)

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

In an large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and allspice. Combine the egg, milk, butter and vanilla extract; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in apples. Scoop into greased mini-muffin pan using medium scoop. Bake at 400 degrees F for 12-14 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Combine 2 tablespoons sugar with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Brush the tops of the warm muffins with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Or, dip the tops of the muffins into melted butter and then into the cinnamon-sugar.

For my first ever blog challenge, I chose this one, created by Nikki over at Crazy Delicious. The rules are pretty simple- she picks an ingredient and you bake whatever you want, as long as it contains that ingredient. She even picked an easy ingredient for the first round, cinnamon.

Sounds easy, right? Well, I decided to challenge myself a little more and choose another ingredient that I had not worked with to much, filo dough. I found a fabulous recipe for an apple strudel using filo, bought my ingredients and was ready to go. A large blob of apple-pecan-filo slop later, I had to change my plan. I am not sure what went wrong, and I plan to find another recipe to make with my remaining filo dough, but just could not handle attempting that damn strudel again.

Still wanting to make something I had never made before, I came across this recipe for cinnamon biscotti from Cooking Light. Success! The biscotti were light, crispy and perfect for dipping into my warm cup of tea. I plan to take the remainder of the biscotti into work with a bag of Dunkin Donuts Vanilla Spice coffee for my co-workers. I think the two together will be a very nice treat.

Be sure to visit the Master Baker Blog to see what everyone else bakes up!

Cinnamon Biscotti

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons stick margarine, melted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Cooking spray
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325°.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine eggs, margarine, and vanilla; stir with a whisk. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 10 times. Shape dough into a 16-inch-long roll. Place roll on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; flatten to a 3/4-inch thickness. Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; sprinkle over dough.

Bake at 325° for 30 minutes. Remove roll from baking sheet; let cool 10 minutes on a wire rack. Cut roll diagonally into 24 (1/2-inch) slices. Place, cut sides down, on a baking sheet. Bake at 325° for 10 minutes. Turn cookies over; bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet; let cool completely on a wire rack.

I must have made at least 4 batches of these muffins last fall. The recipe came from The What’s Cooking board, and I simply copied and pasted it since it was pre-blogging days. After a google search, it appears the original recipe came from here. I think these muffins are better than Starbucks! I made a few changes and re-wrote the directions a little, based on another muffin recipe I have, for my own reference. These muffins also freeze well, which is good since the recipe makes about 24 muffins!

Almost-Like-Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon (Increased to 1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 tsp nutmeg (Omitted)
• 1 tsp ground cloves (Omitted)
• 4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• Pinch of cardamom (optional) (Omitted)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp soda
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
• 1 ¼ cups vegetable oil (I subbed 1/2 cup applesauce and 3/4 cup oil)
• 8 oz package cream cheese* (I used the cinnamon swirl flavor)
• Chopped nuts** (walnuts, pecans) (optional) (Walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together in a medium bowl, set aside. In a large bowl/stand mixer, combine eggs, sugar and oil. Mix well, stir in pumpkin. Add dry ingredients until combined and batter is thick. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full. Put 1-2 tsp cream cheese in the middle, pressing down. I put additional tablespoon or so of batter on top of cream cheese, to “hide” it in the muffin. Sprinkle with 1 tsp chopped nuts. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!). Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Do not touch the cream cheese until it cools, as it is very very hot. Makes 24 muffins.

*The best cream cheese to use is the cheesecake flavored kind. Put the entire tub or brick on a piece of tin foil, and shape it into a long log. Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour. Unwrap and cut with a sharp knife. If the disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This keeps the cream cheese in one big lump, and also lets you push it down into the batter. I don’t bother with this step, since I add batter on top of cream cheese.

**Starbucks uses chopped pumpkin seeds, which are very good if you can find them. I like walnuts, but any kind of nuts work well.