Toffee Crunch Muffins

This week, I decided to give my Kitchen Aid cookbook a chance to redeem itself and asked my fiance to pick something special out of it. He finished his undergraduate courses this week, and I wanted to celebrate. He decided on the Toffee Crunch Muffins, which looked a little something like this in the cookbook:

 Magical, right? I was a little weary because of the previous debacle, but decided to give them a try. But while reading though the ingredients, I was slightly horrified by all the, shall we say, "badness" in them: regular milk, sour cream, and most horrifying, 3 bars (1.4 ounces each) chocolate covered toffee. How awful is that!? Just because I like to bake does not mean I forget all about calories and fat and stuff. Oh no, I avidly follow Weight Watchers, so I decided to make some substitutions: I used skim milk, light sour cream, and about seven small Weight Watcher by Whitman's English toffee. Each of those English Toffee bits were one point each, not bad at all. I really cut down on the candy because I did want me or my fiance to indulge in the extra colories. To make up for it, I shelled some almonds and chopped them up too.  My batter looked something like this:

They look good, huh? You can see the chunks of chocolate heath and small almond slivers (kinda, they're white so just pretend). At first, I was really confused because my batter had the heavy consistency of dough. This worried me because I hadn't made muffins in a while. In my brain, I was calling them cupcakes. Cupcakes have liquid batter, muffins are more doughy. In my fear, I kinda just plopped them in the tin; there are spots where you can see the bottom of the pan untouched by dough. I had saved some of the heath and almond mixture to sprinkle on top. Apollo, my doberman, stared at me the whole time these were baking:

Anyways, I kept checking the muffins in the oven and after about 25 minutes and pulled them out. They were in the exact same shape and were the exact same color as when I put them in.

But then I tried them. And they were magical!!! The small bits of almonds and heath were the perfect combination. I could taste the fluffy sweetness of the muffin itself and then was pleasantly surprised by the small bursts of chocolate. Some of the heath had melted and created a kind of syrup on the top and bottom of the muffin. Although I never baked with sour cream before, I was pleased with the sweet taste it created. I would definitely recommend making these; I haven't been able to stop nibbling on them all week, and I don't feel too guilty about doing it. Below I will post the recipe as I read it in the book, but if you are interested in making the muffins lighter, just use light sour cream, skim milk and Weight Watcher or light heath bars.

Toffee Crunch Muffins from Kitchen Aid Baking Basics:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

1 egg, beaten

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 bars (1.4 ounces each) chocolate covered toffee, chopped, divided

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 . Grease 10 standard muffin cups (I think I made mine smaller because I used 18 muffin cups).

2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and slat in bowl of electric stand mixer. Combine milk, sour cream, egg, butter and vanilla in small bowl until well blended. Stir into flour mixture until moistened. Fold in two thirds of toffee. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle evenly with remaining toffee.

3. Bake for about 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out smooth (I had to bake mine for 25 minutes, but start with less time and then go up). Remove from pans; cool on wire racks 10 minutes. 

Enjoy! Let me know if you try it! I would love to hear how they came out!

The Trials and Errors of Baking

Let it be known that not all baking adventures turn out so well. And although I did not mean for it to happen, I am completely guilty of this. I bought myself a five-dollar cookbook at Barnes and Noble one day and was dying to try one of the cookie recipes: Kitchen Aid Baking Basics--Oatmeal S'Mores Cookies.

Makes you hungry just thinking about it, huh? I'll make it even worse; here's what the photo in the cookbook said they would look like:

Does this not look amazing? Mini chocolate chips, fluffy white marshmallow pieces, and bits of chocolate graham cracker to create the ultimate s'more cookie.

So here's what mine looked like while baking, after I followed the directions exactly:

Not exactly true to the photo, right? Here's what happened when they came out of the oven:

100% NOT like the picture in my cookbook. Instead, the marshmallows actually completely melted and turned into glass on the cookie sheet. The chocolate chips were still intact, but definitely not like the photo. I think the only way Kitchen Aid could have gotten the marshmallow bits to stay fluffy and white was to plop them on at the last second. After baking for 16 minutes, there's no way they could stay intact.

They were not the best cookie I have ever eaten, but they weren't the worst either. Because the marshmallows spread out, the cookies became really chewy but not necessarily hard. My father loved them because he loves oatmeal cookies, but my fiance was not impressed. Neither was I, to be honest.

Despite the debacle, I learned a few things:
1. Marshmallow recipes are deceiving. Don't believe them. If I want to bake with them again, I will plop them on at the last second. It was upsetting because marshmallows (like everything else in moderation) are actually good for you (Two large marshmallows are only one point, for those familiar with Weight Watchers). I try to use them when I can because they are a sweet treat that won't make me feel guilty afterward.
2. This recipe is actually a pretty good oatmeal cookie recipe. I am plotting to already alter them for next time. Because I love chocolate chips, I am going to leave them, but I think I'll substitute the graham crackers and the marshmallows with walnuts or pecans, or even white chocolate chips. I might add more old-fashioned oats next time to make them a bit healthier.
3. Even following a recipe EXACTLY does not guarantee it is going to look like the photo or taste great.

Baking is a lot of trial and error, figuring out what works and what doesn't. This recipe has really taught me that but helped me realize I can personalize the ingredients to fix what didn't work.

I did not post the recipe because I would not really recommend it, but if someone is interested, just leave me a comment and I will post the image for you. Thanks for reading, all!

Welcome!

Welcome to Baker's Blog!

Studying, writing papers and reading take up a huge portion of my time. Reading has always been a favorite pastime of mine, but once I'm done, my brain is exhausted. To relieve that tension and to do something fun, I love to bake. I decided to pick this as my blogging topic because I like to experiment with the process and would like to share my failures and successes. I hope to see if my baking talents improve (or worsen) as I record my adventures, ideas, and catastrophes on my blog. I'm not sure how commenting works on Blogger, but if anyone has any recipes or advice they would like to share, I welcome feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to read this; I hope you enjoy the blog posts to come.