Milk & Cookies

Narrator: You’re NEVER going to BELIEVE the TWIST! Coming up on Milk & Cookies!

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Narrator:  And NOW, back to Milk & Cookies.  Tonight, we’ve got a twist you’re NEVER going to BELIEVE!

[Diary room]

Derek, investment banker: What?? Holy [beep]!

Sherriann, professional hang glider:  Oh my God, when they told us the twist, I was just like… Oh my God.

Narrator: Stay tuned for more Milk & Cookies!

[Flashy image & swooping sound]

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Anyways… there’s a big twist on this week’s cookie blog. You’d never believe it if I hadn’t been hyping it all week long. Okay… are you ready? [cut to commercial] Okay… are you ready? This week’s cookie blog is about muffins. That’s right, all along you thought this was a blog about cookies and now I’ve pulled the rug out from under your feet!

I’ve made muffins before and they usually come out okay, or fine, or pretty good. But these ones are awesome. I’ve always wanted to make muffins that taste like they came from a café, and these ones finally do! Of course, they have no health benefits whatsoever and barely qualify as a breakfast food. Whatever. Apparently café operators don’t worry about these things so neither do I.

Ingredients

I mostly followed a recipe I found on Recipezaar and then changed it slightly to make it better. Basically I just added a little more sugar and baking powder. My friend Harley was telling me that you’re supposed to use nice fresh baking powder to make muffin recipes turn out right, rather than the stuff that’s been in the back of your cupboard for months. My baking powder has been in my cupboard a while… but I figured instead of buying new stuff I would just add more baking powder to the recipe. Ta da. Nice and fluffy.

Here’s the stats (makes 15 muffins):

• 2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup light-brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (~12 oz or 2 cups)

Ready to go in the oven

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place muffin papers in muffin tin. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients (flour, sugars, baking powder, salt) In a plastic bowl, microwave butter until melted. Add milk, eggs, and vanilla to melted butter and stir. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add chocolate chips and stir a little more. Spoon batter into muffin cup, filling each cup between 3/4 and all the way full. Sprinkle sugar across the tops. Bake ~15 minutes.

If you’ve ever made muffins before, you know they tell you that the less you stir the better. But isn’t there some minimum amount of stirring that just has to be done or else the things don’t mix together? Some of it depends on the spoon (use a big one!). My own personal rule is to absolutely positively never stir more than 25 stirs after mixing wet and dry ingredients. It’s generally pretty easy to stay under 25. But someday maybe a real muffin expert will tell me how you get everything stirred together in 5 stirs or less. Crazy.

Actually this picture is from this weekend's batch not tonight's so I was able to photograph them in natural light. Beautiful, huh?

Anyways, ponder these things while you wait the 15 minutes. Then take out the muffins & let them cool on a cooling rack. Or eat them. They are best straight out of the oven. Enjoy! Or rather, since I’m the one with a bunch of warm muffins in my kitchen, Yum!

P.S. While the second batch is baking, you can ponder why reality TV shows repeat the exact same thing before and after a commercial break. After a week of filming 24 hours a day on multiple cameras, do they not have enough material? Do they think we won’t notice?

...but where are all of the muffin bottoms?

Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you plan them. This week’s cookie is a great example for two reasons. First, I was very excited to try out the recipe voted most popular by those of you who voted. I was at the grocery store with a pile of fresh jalapenos, and cream cheese. Sadly, there were no fresh cranberries to be had. After weighing my options (dried cranberries, canned cranberries), I decided to go with the second place cookie instead. Pumpkin Butterscotch! Don’t worry jalapeno lovers…that cookie is still going to happen.

Also, these aren’t really cookies. Even though Joy the Baker calls them cookies in two different recipes… do not be fooled. These truly are muffin tops. Light, fluffy, sweet, and very cake-like. All that is missing is the muffin bottoms, but who needs those anyways.

Ok, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1-1/2 tspn baking powder
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1 tspn ground cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1-1/4 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tspn vanilla extract
• 1 cup butterscotch chips

Directions

Looking at all of those ingredients, these cookies might appear to be complicated. Don’t worry about it. These cookies are actually pretty easy to make.
First combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon) but not the sugar, in a medium bowl and mix them together. In a second (larger) bowl combine the eggs and sugar. Beat the eggs and sugar together using a blender until they are well mixed (about 1-2 minutes). Now mix in the dry ingredients a bit at a time and blend on slow until they make a nice batter. Now mix in the pumpkin, vanilla, oil, and butterscotch chips. This batter will end up being much more like cake batter than cookie dough.

Now that the batter is complete, set it in the fridge for an hour or so. In the mean time you can prepare a couple of baking trays by lining them with parchment paper.

When you are ready to bake preheat the oven to 325° F. Using a large spoon or even an ice cream scoop, make ~1/4 cup batter piles for each cookie. These cookies expand by quite a bit during baking so be sure to leave 1-1/2 to 2 inches between each cookie. I was only able to get 9 or 12 on each baking sheet depending on how tight I tried to squeeze them. When each tray is complete pop them into the oven and bake one tray at a time. Baking time should be approximately 16 minutes, but you should test a cookie with a toothpick before removing them. If the toothpick can be inserted into a cookie and come out clean, then it is done.

Each tray will need to cool for a few minutes before you remove the cookies, and eat them.

If you are a fancy-pants and have a sugar sifter, give the cookies a nice dusting of powdered sugar and they will look amazing. I sadly, do not yet have one, but it is next on my list of kitchen gadgets (along with a cooling rack).

Oh yeah, don’t forget your milk!