muffins Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Posted by Meaghan Barry on April 4, 2013

chocolate peanut butter banana muffins

Ready for some non-Easter recipes yet? We’ve taken a brief hiatus this week after Easter to recuperate and to start getting into spring-mode! We have been brainstorming a lot of new recipes ideas and can’t wait to share them. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share the recipe for these chocolate peanut butter banana muffins that I made for the first time about six months ago and have made several times since. T loves them and I really don’t mind eating them myself ;)

chocolate peanut butter muffins

The original recipe is from Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook Deceptively Delicious. In her cookbook, she incorporates a lot of pureed fruits and vegetables into recipes so that kids (especially picky eaters) get more nutrients into their diet. The original recipe calls for a 1/2 cup of pureed carrots or cauliflower, but I haven’t yet tried making them with this. The recipe I have tried does incorporate a bananas, peanut butter, and applesauce- they are amazingly moist considering they only have one egg white and no oil or butter in them.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Ingredients

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, divided
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 banana, mashed
1 egg white
1 cup all purpose flour (alternatively, you could use ½ cup whole wheat flour and ½ cup all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, line a muffin tin with paper baking cups.
In a large mixing bowl, mix ½ cup of the brown sugar with the peanut butter, applesauce, mashed banana and egg white. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour(s), baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Add the mixed dry ingredients with the peanut butter mixture and stir to combine. Add the chocolate chips until fully mixed. Add the remaining ½ of brown sugar and stir once or twice.
Use a spoon to pour the batter in 12 muffin cups (the batter may be a bit thicker than a regular muffin recipe.) Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops of the muffins are set and a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow the muffins to cool in the muffin tin for a few minutes. Remove muffins from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Source: Adapted from Deceptively Delicious and Once a Month Mom

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 8, 2013

Perfect Corn Muffins from 2 Sisters 2 Cities

My sisters will probably laugh at this post about corn muffins given my record with making them. Back about five years ago, my sisters were visiting me in Boston and I made a batch of cornbread to go with whatever dinner we were having. I decided to make a batch from scratch and apparently used corn starch instead of corn meal. Let’s just say the consistency was really, really bad. They have not let me live down the cornbread debacle, but I think the joke is sorta on them considering they actually ate the corn starch corn bread!

Making Corn Muffins

I’ve now found a sure fire recipe for corn muffins and I even use the right ingredients now! I have another recipe that I am planning on sharing tomorrow that goes perfectly with these muffins.

Corn Muffins from 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Perfect Corn Muffins

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 18 mins

Total time: 28 mins

Ingredients

1 and ¼ cups yellow cornmeal
1 and ¼ cups all-purpose flour
⅓ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 and ½ cups milk
¾ cup unsalted butter (1 and ½ sticks), melted and allowed to slightly cool

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Prep muffin pan with 12 baking cups.
In a large bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and butter. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the liquid. Stir until combined, but try not to overmix the batter (it may still be slightly lumpy.)
Fill the 12 muffins cups about ¾th full. Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden and a toothpicks comes out clean when inserted into the center of a muffin.

Source: Recipe from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

Have you ever made a cooking blunder that your family won’t let you live down? I would love to hear your story!

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on October 11, 2012

The boy is officially obsessed with mini cupcakes. It seems like every grocery store we go to has stacks of them lined up waiting for him in the bakery section. It’s nearly impossible for me to get through the store without a meltdown for “cakes!” Since this thing for “cakes!” thing doesn’t appear to be going away, I decided to make some mini pumpkin muffins today so I could at least control what went into them. I topped them off with some cream cheese frosting and I have to say, they are pretty darn good.

While I wouldn’t actually qualify these as healthy treats, it does have a good amount of pumpkin in it. That should count for something, right? I also cut the amount of sugar back in both the muffin and cream cheese frosting recipes and I really don’t think it is missed at all. I’ll keep you posted on his reaction to mini pumpkin muffins when he wakes up from nap time…[edited post-nap: T just woke up from his nap. When he walked downstairs and saw all the muffins, he said, “whoa, cakes!” He took a bite of one and proclaimed “hooray!” I’ll take that to be a good review of mini pumpkin muffins.]

Mini Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

Author: m

Recipe type: Breakfast or Dessert

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 18 mins

Total time: 28 mins

Serves: 10

Ingredients

For mini pumpkin muffins:
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
⅓ cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
1 and ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or alternatively use ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp ginger, ⅛ tsp ground cloves, and ⅛ tsp nutmeg)
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
For cream cheese frosting:
¼ cup butter, softened
4 oz (in weight) reduced fat cream cheese (but not fat-free)
¾ cup powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a mini muffin tin with paper liners.
Whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, and sugar in a large bowl. In a separate medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and whisk until combined.
Divide batter among muffin cups. I made 24 mini muffins with this recipe and had a little batter leftover. I only have one mini muffin pan so I decided to make 3 large muffins with the leftover batter instead of making a second batch of 6-8 more mini muffins. Bake mini muffins for 18 minutes and large muffins for 25-30 minutes. Muffins are done with a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.
While the muffins are cooling, make the cream cheese frosting. Mix all ingredients on on high until soft and whipped. Spread onto muffins once cool or apply using a pastry bag with a frosting tip.
Store in fridge since the frosting has cream cheese in it.

Source: Pumpkin muffin recipe adapted from smitten kitchen and Cream Cheese Frosting recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman.

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on February 12, 2012

I guess I have been on a breakfast kick the last two days with my posts. Although I did promise you I would build up that breakfast section in the index! I can’t take all the credit for these muffins- my boyfriend found it and insisted I make them. My boyfriend has been on Weight Watchers with me and it has been really great to have the support. The only thing is that he gets so many more points than me and he is losing so much more weight. It is easy to get jealous!

I know the whole spiel on how men lose weight faster than women, but that doesn’t help with the fact that we are super competitive. We will be out to eat and he will order first and replace his French fries with a baked potato. So then when I order, I one up him by replacing mine with a side salad. When the food gets to the table he will try to pass off half his baked potato to me and then take off the top piece of bread to his sandwich. I haven’t even begun to talk about our competitiveness at the gym. Have you ever raced on an elliptical? Overall though, it is really great to have a partner in this Weight Watchers lifestyle change, to support you, and keep you on track. (See! I didn’t say diet!)

So, what were we talking about before I went on this whole Weight Watchers tangent? Oh yes, mini muffins! Boyfriend M (this sounds so corny but don’t want you to be confused by sister M and her husband M, and our little sister M) found this recipe on Weight Watchers online and ask for me to make them.

At 1 PointPlus a mini muffin, I happily obliged. I made half of the muffins with baking paper cups and the other half without. I would recommend you use a small amount of cooking spray and go without the muffin papers. The muffins sort of sticks in the paper and you basically need to eat the paper to get the rest of the muffin out (more fiber!) Also ,the original recipe calls for light artificially sweetened vanilla yogurt and the closest I had was 0% plain Greek yogurt. So as an alternative to vanilla yogurt, I took a cup of plain yogurt and added a few splashes of vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup 0% Fat Greek Yogurt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup fat-free skim milk
1/2 cup uncooked quick oats
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract plus a few splashes for flavoring yogurt
1 large egg, beaten
1 large ripe banana, mashed
1/4 cup unpacked brown sugar
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl combine yogurt, 1 tablespoon of sugar and a few splashed of vanilla extract. Mix until combined. Add in milk, oats, the rest of the vanilla, and egg. Stir to combine and set aside to allow oats to soften, about 5 minutes.

In another bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Once the oats are softened in wet ingredient bowl, mix in mashed banana.

Gently combine dry ingredients into banana yogurt mixture until they are just incorporated. Do not over mix. Fold in mini chocolate chips.

Spoon batter by small cookie scoop or tablespoon into mini-muffin tins coated with cooking spray. Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden. Makes 36 muffins.

Serving Size- 1 muffin for 1 Weight Watchers PointPlus

Source- Adapted from Weight Watchers Online

-K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 10, 2012

When searching for recipes the other day to plan out what I was going to go make this week I ran into a recipe for cranberry walnut muffins. I was looking for something to bake a friend at work, whose birthday is this week. I wanted a healthy recipe because everyone at work is watching their weight in the new year. I also had overly ripe bananas that I hate to throw away. I decided to create my own recipe with the addition of bananas. They smelled so good when they were cooking, I had to have one as soon as they came out of the oven. Let me just tell you they were delicious… I ate two…but I counted them don’t worry. They ended up being 4.5 PointsPlus on Weight Watchers, so I had to eat 2 to make it an even 9 points!

Cranberry, Banana and Walnut Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup fat-free milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp. of canola oil
1 1/2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
Cinnamon Sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a muffin tin with nonstick spray or paper baking cups. In a large bowl combine both flours, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a smaller bowl combine egg, milk, sugar, and oil. Add in mashed bananas to wet mixture. Next add wet mixture to dry mixture, stirring until just combined (don’t over mix!) Gently fold in cranberries and walnuts. Scoop about 1/4 cup into the 12 muffin cups until mixture is divided evenly between the cups. Sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 15-18 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool. Eat plain or spread a little light butter on them.

Enjoy!

-K
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