Page 31: Zucchini Muffins

After being so underwhelmed by the Pumpkin Spice Muffins, I was not exactly excited about to make the zucchini version.  But I had picked up a couple of zucchinis at the farmers market and was banned from the beach the first weekend after LASIK, so I took the plunge.

I was sooo pleasantly surprised! They were sweeter then their pumpkin sibling (although I did learn from that experience and used an extra heavy pour of agave) and so, so, so moist. I think that was really the kicker with these - what sent them over the edge from "meh" to "good" - how crazy moist they were.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take photos before dishing them out among my friends.  Fortunately, my friend April loved them so much she texted me a picture of her breakfast the next day - so I am able to document my success!

Not bad. And... done with muffins! We're in the final countdown. Just FIVE recipes to go!

Page 30: Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Somehow, I'm down to just ten recipes in the book and still have three muffin recipes to try.  I find this odd because I love muffins. However, two of them are pumpkin and zucchini and those are both very uninspiring to me.  There is a reason the blueberry version happened early in the process.

Anyway, at some point in the past year I had the foresight to purchase a can of pumpkin puree that was sitting in my pantry. Since it's technically fall now, I thought I might as well give these a shot.

Somehow, the BabyCakes muffins always turn out so moist - a quality that is totally opposite from the cupcakes and was a huge relief to me having just come out of the Red Velvet fiasco.  However, these muffins just didn't have a lot of flavor. They were sweetened with 2/3 cup of agave for the whole recipe, but I think they needed more. If I made these again (and I probably won't...) I would add more sugar and/or some chocolate chips.

I tried to redeem them a little bit by brushing extra agave on the top after they came out of the oven, but it made them only slightly better.

With this recipe done, I am now in the single digits! Just NINE recipes to go before I'm through book one!

Page 28: Ginger Peach Corn Muffins

In reviewing my list of "yet unbaked" recipes recently, I realized I still have a lot of muffins to bake. I made the Blueberry Muffins early on in the adventure, but the rest of the chapter was still relatively unvisited.  This might be because the ones left to bake included Pumpkin-Spice Muffins, Zucchini Muffins, and these Ginger Peach Corn Muffins... all of which seemed best suited for fall baking.  Thus, I was very unmotivated to make them in March.

It didn't help that I don't care for ginger either - at least not in most forms. But I knew I had to make these eventually and invited over a few friends to help me bake who are bigger fans of the spice - just in case I didn't want to keep any of them when all was said and done.  Plus, baking with friends is more fun than baking alone (as long as you make plenty to share)!

I also had a hard time finding good peaches, particularly since it's March and I'm on an island where peaches have to be shipped a minimum of 3,000 miles before they reach me.  I was so proud of myself when I stumbled upon a handful of soft and yummy smelling peaches at my grocers. However, when we cut into them it was obvious they had been through some trauma - instead of soft peachiness inside it looked as though they had been partially frozen at some point.  Fortunately, these are tossed in agave and lemon juice and caramelized in the oven before topping the muffins, so the caramelizing served to both sweeten them up and disguise their scars.

In short, this corn, ginger, and peach flavor combination is amazing. And I'm speaking as someone who doesn't - or at least didn't - like ginger.  They were also incredibly moist, even when I enjoyed one for breakfast the next day. 

And so pretty, right?  I love the aesthetic quality the caramelized peaches add to the top.

After being pleasantly surprised by the flavor of these darlings, I'm suddenly much less hesitant to try two other recipes in the book: Gingerbread and Gingersnaps...  more opportunities to let ginger impress me!

Page 33: Blueberry Muffins

This morning I gave the hubby several breakfast choices, including cereal (boring), oatmeal (I like oatmeal enough but come on, it's Saturday), pancakes (okay, I do love pancakes), and blueberry scones.  But he was incredibly indecisive, so I cracked the BabyCakes book and thought, "why yes, I love scones but I do have an entire book to bake my way through and I also love blueberry muffins". So... guess what we had for breakfast??

BabyCakes Blueberry Muffins are made with coconut oil, spelt flour and lots of other goodness, but the surprise ingredient was lemon extract! It wasn't enough that I would lobby to change the name to "blueberry lemon muffins", but it was enough to add a little hint of buttermilk-like tanginess. I bet that's what Erin McKenna was going for. She's so smart like that.

Mixing up the goodness:

Before:

After:

They were yummy - but I do think I like the scones better. It might be the spelt flour but they had more of a corn muffin texture than a cupcake texture. These babies also have no white sugar - just agave nectar - so they weren't super sweet. Which, as I think I've established, is how I prefer things but the hubby was not as impressed as usual. After the first one, we had the brilliant idea to pull some of the vanilla frosting out of the fridge...

Even better! I think we really might have to keep frosting in the fridge all the time now. Apparently, it goes with everything. Who knew?!


POST PUBLISHING EDIT:
I have now learned my lesson and in the future will wait until the muffins have cooled before I blog about them. My apologies. They were even better the next day! Moist and delicious and the lemon was just... perfect. I'm a believer. These muffins are yumminess personified - no frosting necessary (but always allowed).