Apple Cinnamon Pecan Muffins

I would like you to read the title one more time. Apple Cinnamon Pecan Muffins. Read it slowly and really ponder those words.

Now allow yourself to imagine the flavors, all combined into a delicious muffin drizzled with a sweet glaze. Visualize yourself eating these on a chilly Saturday morning, at 10:00, in your pajamas with a glass of milk, or coffee, if you're into that sort of thing.

Are you hooked yet? Because these are amazing!

I think that muffins are becoming one of my favorite things to make for breakfast. They are easy, versatile, and delicious, what more could a girl want? Check out my Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins if you missed those last month, and make sure to give this recipe a try!

Apple Cinnamon Pecan Muffins
adapted from Taste of Home online
Prep: 20 minutes / Bake: 12-15 minutes
Yield: 12 muffins

For the muffins:
1/2 cup pecan pieces
1 medium tart apple
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened or light apple juice

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toast pecans: place pecans in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring occassionally. Between stirring, peel apple (I used a honeycrisp), and cut into small pieces.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir in milk. Tip: save the butter wrapper to grease your muffin tin in step 5.

The sight of butter and sugar in my mixing bowl makes me giddy

4. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Pour into butter mixture, stirring just until moistened. Fold in the apples and pecans.

5. Grease a 12-muffin tin or line with paper cups. Fill muffin cups about three-fourths full. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

6. While muffins are baking, combine the powdered sugar and apple juice in a small bowl. Mix until smooth. Cool muffins for 5 minutes before removing from the pan. Place muffins on a plate or serving platter and drizzle evenly with the glaze. Serve warm.

Nutrition Facts: 235 calories, 10 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 32 mg cholesterol, 240 mg sodium, 37 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 3 g protein

Click below for my review, freezer tips, additional mix-ins, and a link to my beloved muffin tin! P.S. I am working on getting a link to a printable version of my recipes to make cooking easier for you!

Garlic Bread

I made up this garlic bread recipe several years ago and it has become a staple whenever we have spaghetti. It is super simple and very delicious! Most of the time I just use normal slices of bread, but I had some of my french bread on hand, so I decided to make it with that. Either way, it's a winner!

Garlic Bread
Prep: 5 minutes / Bake: 5-10 minutes
Yield: how ever many you want!

Bread, as many slices as you need (whole wheat, white, french...whatever you have)
Butter (real butter, margarine, or spread. Again, whatever you have on hand. We use Smart Balance)
Garlic Garlic (from Tastefully Simple)
Parmesan cheese (I use the pre-grated, processed kind haha)

1. Butter your bread!

2. Sprinkle with Garlic Garlic

3. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, however much you like!

4. Bake the bread. This can vary. I range anywhere from 350 degrees for 10 minutes or 400 degrees for 5 minutes. I usually just gauge it off of when my pasta will be done. There's no real set time. Just check the crust and when it gets to your desired crispiness, it's ready!

I hope you enjoyed my super simple garlic bread! I'm not even gonna bother with a review... I made it up on my very own, I eat it often, aaand I'm feeling kinda lazy! Have a good weekend and don't forget to set your clocks back tonight!

 

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

I spotted these little gems in my cookbook last night and wrote the ingredients on my grocery list.

And boy am I glad I did.  

So moist, light, pumpkin-spiced, delectable, fallish, and heavenly.

I love them.

A lot.

Probably too much.

And you will too when you make them. They are what I said and more. I was skeptical about the icing; I love my frosting, especially cream cheese frosting when it comes to pumpkin, and I didn't think the icing would meet my standards, but it was delicious! I had never done the brown butter thing before so that was fun to try too. They aren't too difficult to make and the recipe yields enough for a crowd.

As you may recall from these cookies, I altered Martha's method a bit because it didn't seem too realistic. I almost changed this one too, because the recipe said to pipe the batter onto the baking sheet...what?!? Who ever heard of piping cookies? Well I hadn't, so I wasn't going to. But I decided to go all Martha on this one and followed exactly what the recipe said. The cookie 'dough' is more like a thick cake batter, so the drop method probably wouldn't have looked quite right. Here's to fall and good ol' pumpkin!

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Prep: 60 minutes / Bake: 10-12 minutes
Yield: about 6 dozen (I halved the recipe when I made them!)

For the cookies:
2-3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1-1/4 teaspoons ginger
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2-1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the icing:
4 cups powdered sugar
10 tablespoons (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon evaporated milk, plus more if needed
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Add pumpkin, evaporated milk, and vanilla; mix on low until well blended. Add flour mixture and beat on low until combined.

3. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper. Transfer batter to a pastry bag (not all of it of course) fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip. I just used the bag without a tip. Pipe 1-1/2 inch circles onto parchment paper, about 1-inch apart.

4. Bake cookies until tops spring back, 10-12 minutes. Cool on sheets on racks 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack; let cool completely.

5. Make the icing. Put powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Then  butter about 3 minutes longer, swirling the pan occassionally, until golden brown. Immediately add butter to powered sugar, scraping any brown bits from pan. Add evaporated milk and vanilla; stir until smooth.

6. Spread icing on cookies, about 1 teaspoon each. If icing is too thick, add more evaporated milk. I added more and then a little too much. As you can see in the pictures, my icing was a little thin and slightly lumpy, but that's ok!

Oops! I dropped one frosting-side down.

According to Martha, these cookies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

French Bread

I think that most people would agree, there is nothing like the smell of homemade bread baking in the oven. Slicing your very own loaf of bread that you made from scratch is a great feeling. You feel powerful, accomplished, successful, amazing, and... hungry!

One of my favorite memories is my grandma's homemade bread, it was absolutely delicious, and it smelled sooo good! She would save old bread bags and then use them to give away her homemade loaves to her children, which meant that I had one of grandma's yummy loaves in my own house! I never had the chance to make bread with her. She cooked with all her grandkids, but you had to be a certain age before you could make bread. At the time, I didn't mind not being able to make bread with her; I thought of it as such a priviledge and I anticipated the day when I would be old enough. I wish now that I could have at least observed her while she prepared her famous bread. This isn't her recipe, I still have yet to get my hands on it and give it a try. My aunt has tried to make it but said it never turns out the same. My grandma swore by her old-fashioned bread mixer; someday we'll see if I can make it just like her.

I have so many wonderful memories in my grandma's kitchen, and I am starting to make new ones in my own kitchen. I never had anyone teach me to knead bread or the best way to mix it, but I am learning along the way, which I think is one of the best ways to do so. Then someday, when I'm old and have grandbabies, I can pass on all of my learned wisdom to them. And I will sound very smart, even if I'm not there yet. To get to my point here, this is a relatively easy bread to make. And if you are willing to follow my novice, self-learned advice, you can make it too!

This one's for my grandma.

French Bread

from The Old Farmer's Everyday Cookbook Almanac

Prep: 25 minutes + rising / Bake: 22-30 minutes

Yield: 2 loaves

2-1/4 teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast  

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter, melted

4 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

melted butter, for the top (I leave this part out)

1. Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm (110-115 degrees) water and set aside. Add the yeast to the water and give it a few stirs. It will do the rest on it's own. I use a meat thermometer to test the water temperature.

2. In a large bowl, stir together 1 cup warm water with the sugar and salt. Add the yeast and the melted butter, stir with a wooden spoon until blended.

3. Mix in the flour, one cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. I used 4-1/2 cups but probably should have used 5 because it was pretty sticky when I first started kneading it. If you're not sure how much to use, go with 4 and you can add flour while you are kneading. When you have enough flour, the dough will start to pull away from the sides of the bowl (see photos). The first cup or two of flour will be lumpy, don't worry about that, it will smooth out. The easiest way I found to mix the flour is to stir the spoon around the edge of the bowl; the dough will sort of mix in the flour itself. Trying to fold the dough over to mix in the flour is more difficult.

1 cup flour, don't fret over the lumps.

2 cups flour

3 cups flour

4-1/2 cups flour, notice how the dough pulled away from the side of the bowl.

4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 1 minute. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Knead again for 1 mintue and let it rest 10 more minutes. To knead: sprinkle a small amount of flour on a clean counter. Place the dough on the counter and dip your fingers in the flour if you dough is sticky. Fold the dough towards you, then, using your palms, press the dough away from you. Rotate the dough a quarter turn and repeat. Add flour as needed, yet sparingly. Adding too much flour or overkneading will make the dough tough.

After the first minute

After the second minute, notice how it's smoother

5. Divide the dough in half and use your hands to gently shape each half into an 8x12-inch rectangle. Starting at the long end, roll up tightly. Place the dough seam side down on an ungreased baking sheet. Using a sharp kife, slash the top every 2 inches, cover and let rise until doubled in size. I used a pizza cutter to divide the dough. The shaping part is easier said than done. Press with your palms initially and then use your fingers to do the edges. Don't worry if it's not perfect! Mine sure wasn't! After rolling up the dough, tuck the ends under to hide any uneven edges. I let the dough rise in the oven (turned off of course) so that there weren't any drafts. To speed up the process, fill a 9x13 pan with hot water and place it on the rack under the bread. This will take about 30 minutes.

My very imperfect rectangle

6. Preheat the oven to 400. Bake for 24-30 minutes, or until bread sounds hollow when tapped. Place on racks to cool and brush the tops with melted butter, optional. The recipe says to bake 30-40 minutes, but mine was done at 24 minutes. Go by how your oven cooks, mine usually cooks faster than most recipes say. I don't use the melted butter on top.

I know this was a long post and thanks for sticking with me! I felt that the many pictures and explanations with each step were necessary. If you're not too bored yet, click below for my review. This bread is great with soup and it freezes very well. Enjoy!