The Return of the Muffins!

It's been a while since I've made any muffins from the book.  I've been on somewhat of a diet and to avoid ruining it, I've been on a hiatus with baked goods.  I went on out of town these past few days and decided to leave my husband with some muffins. 

I made the Brandy and Peach muffins for him:

These muffins were really good!  I had to try one myself because they looked and smelled so good coming out of the oven!  They were not very sweet and had a good balance of brandy and peach in them.  The toughest part was just draining the peach and cutting them small.

I have also made the Jelly doughnut muffins from the book.  I totally forgot and never blogged about them.

These muffins were definitely not my favorite.  The jelly in all the muffins sunk close to the bottom.  It was a pain having to spoon the jelly and then cover it up with more batter.  I am definitely a bigger fan of the fruit muffins.

Wonder what muffin I will tackle next??

Holiday Adventures

With the holidays coming up and a couple of office events, I've had more push to try a couple of new things.

First, I got a mini muffin maker from my mother-in-law. I'm actually really excited to use this gadget. My first trial with this was with a pre-mixed mixture for chocolate chip muffins. They cooked fairly quickly, but it was hard to get them out of the machine. I ended up using a spoon and some of them broke as seen in the picture below.


The other thing I tried is cinnamon hard candy. I've made hard candy before but never with a candy thermometer. I definitely do have to say it's worth paying for one.


My candy came out consistent and did not turn into a gooey mess in the mouth. It also didn't taste like a mouth full of sugar like my first time.


As for crafts, I can't really show any at the moment. I just sent out the 2009 12 days of Christmas swap. I will post pictures as they get opened. :) I will start working on my quilting now that one of my last craftster swap is done.