Need ideas for your Mother’s Day brunch menu? Or just interested in trying my new favorite, easy [semi-healthy] French Toast Bake, made with juicy blueberries, cinnamon, and hearty multigrain bread? If you answered yes to either of those questions, be sure to check out my post on Today’s Housewife right now! Enjoy your day! 
Carrot Cinnamon Muffins are good… like, really good. Not just pretty good or mildly good, but really really really good.
Like, good enough to blog about even though I made them in February. Yes, February. The beginning of February, if you must know. I’m really behind.
Back to the muffin at hand. I had to blog about them. After all, this photo has been sitting on my desktop for months, taunting me.
Yes, genuinely taunting me.
These muffins have a lightly spiced, sweet middle and a slightly crisp, golden brown top. Mmmm, classic muffin love right there.
But why have they been taunting me? After all, that’s a pretty harsh word. Taunt taunt taunt TAUNT… muffins on attack! [Umm, sorry I'm weird.]
Well, first, because they’re like the only way I’ve ever figured out to get Ben to eat extra carrots [besides that baggie I stick everyday in his lunchbox]. And second, because they have the flavor of carrot cake. They’re kind of a lighter, healthier, less sweet version of carrot cake. And lastly, and best of all… no chunkiness! No kinda mushy nuts, no lumpy raisins, no stringy pineapple. Just pure, sweet, spiced carrot goodness. In my opinion, the only time “chunky” with food is good is in regard to applesauce, or Chunky Monkey Ice Cream. [Maybe I do like other "chunky" foods, but I can't think of any so just go with me on this!]
To sum it up: Cinnamon Carrot Muffins are smooth, flavorful, and pretty delicious… that’s all, and here’s the recipe. Bookmark it, print it, or pin it because you’re gonna want to make it! I know I want them again, after staring at their gorgeousness for months on end.
Cinnamon Carrot Muffins [from Whole Living, April 2011]
click to print
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tin with paper liners.
Use a food processor to grate carrots, then remove grating attachment. Add oil, buttermilk, and eggs and pulse until fully combined. Add brown sugar and pulse again.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flours, wheat germ, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then mix until just combined.
Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in muffin tin for 15 minutes, then remove to wire rack to cool before serving or storing.
Time: 30 minutes.
Yield: 12 muffins.
Notes: Alternatively, grate carrots with a box grater and then mix wet ingredients by hand. The food processor is just faster, but not necessary.
So, it’s springtime… but not quite berry season yet. Never mind–frozen berries work just fine in this fluffy, light coffee cake that features not just one but two kinds of delicious berries for your enjoyment. Drool! Raspberries and blueberries pair perfectly in this indulgent breakfast-y dessert treat. There’s just something so special about raspberries, huh? I think so, anyway.
Royal Berry Coffee Cake was the product of a recent Saturday night baking experiment. Those are the best! I started the tradition in high school when I’d bake at night after getting home from running at a cross country or track meet, watching classic TLC shows like “Trading Spaces.” Sometimes friends would be over baking with me, other times it’d just be me and the pets. Now, it’s me and the kitty… with Ben someplace nearby.
The recipe originally was my mom’s, pulled from a newspaper or newsletter of some sort [the credit goes to a woman from at Purdue... just googled her, apparently she's a chef at at dining hall]. My mom had noted that it was delicious in August 2006, and I am happy to report that it was absolutely phenomenal in April 2012. Sweet!
The main change I made to the original recipe was doubling it and baking it in a Bundt pan instead of a 9×13 pan. I did not double the amount of berries [because I wouldn't have had enough otherwise], so feel free to halve the recipe if that works better for you–just bake it for about 30 minutes instead.
However you make it, this springtime cake is sure to satisfy. Each bite of vanilla cake is dotted with berries, and looks impressive when it’s really a cinch to make. The hardest part is waiting for it to bake… the smell is just incredible, and it tastes even better! Make this now!!
What are you baking this spring?
Royal Berry Coffee Cake [adapted from Grace Brutsman, Hillenbrand Hall]
click to print
Ingredients:
Directions:
Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan, then set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Stir together flour and baking powder. Set dry ingredients inside.
Then, cream butter in a stand mixer, incorporating sugar gradually, beating well after each addition until mixture is fluffy and light. Stir in eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute to combine.
Stir vanilla into milk in a measuring cup. Then, alternate adding dry and wet ingredients into bowl of stand mixer, beating well after each addition.
Place half of each type of berry in bottom of prepared pan. Cover with half of cake batter, add rest of berries, and top with remaining batter.
Bake in preheated oven for 65-75 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. Cover with foil after about 45 minutes if the cake starts to get dark.
Cool for 15-25 minutes before inverting on cooling rack, loosening edges with plastic knife if necessary.
Time: 85 minutes [10 minutes active].
Yield: 16-20 servings.
They’re sweet. They’re salty. They’re crunchy. They’re the best new addition to your lunchbox. Check out my post on Today’s Housewife for the recipe!
So, I don’t use my breadmaker nearly enough. Maybe because it’s a bit clunky, maybe because I’m a little too lazy to pull everything out of the cabinet to get it out. But I really should use it more. Especially when it makes delicious treats like these, at a fraction of the effort as regular from-scratch cinnamon rolls take!
Well, I suppose to be perfectly honest, these babies don’t come out of the breadmaker perfectly formed or anything, so there is still some work to be done… but really not much at all. These cinnamon rolls are perfectly sweet, perfectly gooey, and have just the right ratio of filling to icing to satisfy even the toughest critic. An unexpected burst of Maple syrup in the icing takes these cinnamon rolls one step further from amazing to incredible. Or is it incredible to extraordinary? Or wonderful to fantastic? No matter how you put it… these are worth pulling out the ‘ole breadmaker for. If you don’t think two people can polish these off… think again. You can do it!
Can ‘o cinnamon rolls, you don’t got nothing on these!
Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls [from Faithful Provisions, icing from Taste of Home]
click to print
Ingredients:
for the dough
for the filling
for the icing
Directions:
Put dough ingredients in breadmaker according to the manufacturer’s directions [for mine this is liquids and salt, dry, yeast], and run on dough cycle.
Remove dough from breadmaker when cycle is complete, then preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease two round cake pans or pie dishes and set aside.
Roll dough out into a large rectangle, approximately 12×24 inches.
Brush with melted butter, then cover evenly with brown sugar and cinnamon. Be sure to leave about a 1-inch gap around the edges; otherwise filling will spill out when you roll.
Roll up dough lengthwise, then cut in half. Continue cutting each piece in half until you have 16 pieces total. Place in prepared pans.
At this point, you have three options:
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
While baking, mix together icing. Whisk together powdered sugar with maple syrup and butter, then add enough milk to reach spreading consistency. Ice cinnamon rolls immediately after coming out of the oven, serve, and enjoy!
