Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Earlier in the year I saw a post from one of my favorite bloggers - Wendy at  A Day in the Life on the Farm  - and I realized that they've been having a muffin party for years without me. LOL. I emailed the host, Stacy of  Food Lust People Love  and got the scoop: "...last Monday of the month and no themes. We've been baking together since August 2015! Only one rule, you must use the muffin method (folding wet ingredients with dry - no creaming butter and sugar, etc.) to bake muffins." I've been happily joining in for months now. This month is the last Muffin Monday of 2020! Here's the muffin line-up... Banana Mini Muffins from Food Lust People Love Chocolate Avocado Walnut Muffins from Palatable Pastime Cinnamon Applesauce & Raisin Rye Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories Easy Snickerdoodle Muffins  from Making Miracles Eggnog Muffin Tops from Culinary Adventures with Camilla Pearl Millet Banana Muffins from Magical Ingredients Ingredients...

Back when I was looking for a cookie to send for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 201 3, I ended up making Matcha-Black Sesame Shortbreads ...after a little inspirational gift - the matcha - from a friend whose family owns a sushi deli. I've been slowly working my way through the canister and used the last bit of it this morning. I love the delicate color and the subtle flavor. Gotta get my hands on more matcha soon. MOffin = mochiko (sweet rice flour) + muffin. This makes for a quick and portable breakfast. I served these with some yogurt and blueberries. Fast and tasty! 4  eggs 1/2 C olive oil 1 C organic heavy cream 1 C organic 2% milk 1/2 C organic granulated sugar 1 T baking powder 2 T matcha powder 1 box of rice flour Mix the eggs and oil. Then mix in everything else until just moistened. Spoon the batter into greased muffin hollow. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375˚F till the top of the MOffin is slightly browned and slightly cracked. Let cool f...

While I made a delicious Bison Gingerbread Coffee Cake for the party-goers, it wouldn't do for our gluten-free friends. So, I whipped up a different - gluten-free - version...that means without the beer and without the wheat. 1-1/4 C butter, plus some for greasing 1 C unsulphered molasses 1 C dark brown sugar, packed 1/2 C coffee 2 t ground ginger 2 t ground cinnamon 1 t ground nutmeg 1/4 t ground cloves 2 C gluten-free flour blend 1 T baking powder 1 C sour cream 2 eggs Preheat the oven to 350. Butter your muffin pan. Melt the remaining butter completely. Stir in molasses, brown sugar, coffee, eggs, and sour cream. Add in dry ingredients and stir till completely moistened. Spoon into buttered cake pan. Bake for 1 hour or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I served this with a  Ginger-Lemon Curd .

MOffin = mochiko (sweet rice flour) + muffin. This makes for a quick and portable breakfast. I served these with some yogurt and fresh strawberries from my WE Cooperative CSA box from Fogline Farm . 4  eggs 1/2 C olive oil 1-3/4 C coconut cream 1/4 C water 1/2 C organic raw turbinado sugar 1 T baking powder 1 box of rice flour 1 C fresh blackberries Mix the eggs and oil. Then mix in everything else until just moistened. Spoon the batter into greased muffin hollow. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375˚F till the top of the MOffin is slightly browned.

Because we had to be out the door early for a field trip, I wanted to whip up something that we could grab and go, just in case Riley was resistant to getting out of bed. Turns out, he was anything but. He came down the stairs at 5:45am and said, "Mom, let's go." Ummmm. No. So, we had these with some fresh blackberries, fresh mint tea, and still had time to spare. 4 eggs 1/2 C honey 2/3 C olive oil (use a good quality, extra virgin olive oil) 1 t fennel pollen 1 T bee pollen 1-1/2 C white whole wheat flour 1 T baking powder 1/2 t pink Himalaya salt 1-1/2 C fresh rhubarb, sliced chopped cashews organic powdered sugar Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line your muffin tin with paper liners or butter the hollows. Place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Stir until just combined. Don’t overmix, or the cake/muffins will be dry and tough. Spoon batter into liners, top with chopped cashews, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Bake for 45 minutes, or un...

I needed a fairly quick and portable morning snack...just enough to tide over the three hungry Manns till our big Easter brunch. Here's what I came up with. Oh, and I got to use the adorable flower muffin liners I picked up at Sur La Table!  We got to Point Lobos early enough to enjoy our treat before the other families arrived. 2 C organic dark brown sugar 1/2 C butter 1 egg 2 C rhubarb stalks, chopped 3/4 C sour cream 1/4 C milk 1 t baking soda 2 C all purpose flour 1 t pure vanilla 1 t pink Himalaya salt 1 t cinnamon Cream together 1 1/2 C brown sugar and butter. Add remaining ingredients except for the cinnamon and pour into muffin tins. Mix remaining sugar with cinnamon. Sprinkle over batter. Bake in 325°F oven for 40 minutes.

It's time for the February Secret Recipe Club  reveal...and the first reveal of 2012. Happy New Year! What's the Secret Recipe Club? It's a group started by Amanda of Amanda's Cookin' . Each month, every participant is assigned to someone else's blog from which they pick a recipe - or two - to make and post, but it's all a secret until the big day. Today's the day. I always love a kitchen challenge and some culinary adventure. This month I had some help in form of my littlest Baker Mann, Dylan. Here's my source of inspiration: No Reason Needed . Dylan asked if he could make lemon cupcakes for dessert. I said, "you just made fennel pollen-lemon muffins this morning." Mom, I SAID cupcakes, not muffins. "What's the difference between a cupcake and a muffin?" I was genuinely interested in his take on this. The frosting, of course. A muffin is naked. Makes sense. So, after dinner, I let the enthusiastic zester go to t...

Ironically, Kate and I were assigned each other's blogs for our November reveals. While I stuck to some savories, she whipped up a version of my gingerbread muffins. Click here for her version. And here's my original post from November 2010...enjoy. Though I have limited my baking - in an attempt to curtail our household sugar intake - I will put this on the rotation for my once a week oven-time as the holiday season approaches. After all, they are, as Kate mentions, not too sweet. Gingerbread Muffins Steel yourselves. Just as October spawned a glut of pumpkin recipes, I am entering December on a similar gingerbread kick! I love the kick of ginger and the richness of molasses. To stave off the morning chill, I whipped up a batch of gingerbread muffins and served them with chilled eggnog. Yum! 1/2 C butter 1/4 C organic granulated sugar 1 C chestnut flour 2 C white whole wheat flour 1/2 t salt 2 t ground ginger 1 t cinnamon 1 t nutmeg 1 t all-spice 1 egg 1 C hot water 1 ...

The cacao nibs - touted as "chocolate at its wildest and healthiest" - add an intriguing bite to these muffins. Love it. 2 C white whole wheat flour 2 t baking powder 1-1/2 t baking soda 1 t ground cardamom 1 t ground ginger dash of ancho chili powder 4 eggs 1-1/2 C organic raw sugar 1 C unsweetened applesauce 1/2 C olive oil 1/4 C organic raw cacao nib Preheat oven to 350. Whisk all wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir in cacao nibs. Fold in dry ingredients until just moistened. Scrape batter into cupcake liners and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

"The answer can be 'no'," said my friend as she flagged me down on campus, but with me, it's usually 'yes'. And she knows it! So, they were planning a party for the last day of school and thought that my muffins would be a healthier option than cupcakes in a clamshell. Would I? Could I? Of course I would bake two dozen cupcakes for her... 2 C white whole wheat flour 2 t baking powder 1-1/2 t baking soda 1 t ground cardamom 1 t ground ginger 4 eggs 2 C organic raw sugar 1 C unsweetened applesauce 1/2 C olive oil 2 C sliced strawberries 1 C dried cranberries Preheat oven to 350. Whisk all wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir in strawberries. Fold in dry ingredients until just moistened. Scrape batter into cupcake liners, sprinkle with raw sugar, and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

What's the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?!? They are shaped exactly the same; they are made with the same ingredients. So...here are some of my favorite answers for the difference: "Cupcakes have frostings. Muffins are naked." "If you throw a cupcake against a wall you get a sound like "poof"; if you throw a muffin against a wall you get a sound like "thud." "Muffins are simply ugly cupcakes." "Muffins are to bread what cupcakes are to cakes." Whatever you want to call these, they are delicious - and gluten-free. I started with a recipe on the Gluten-Free Goddess blog by Karina Allrich  and tweaked a bit. 1 C blanched almond flour 1/2 C oat flour 1/2 C chestnut flour 1/2 t baking powder 1/2 t baking soda Pinch of pink Himalaya salt 1 C organic raw sugar 5 medium free-range organic eggs 4 oz. light cream cheese, softened 1/2 C organic plain yogurt 2 T fresh lemon juice Lemon zest from 1 lemon ...

I love that this is all mixed in one bowl. Perfect for a hectic get-'em-out-the-door-for-school morning. 1-1/2 C white whole wheat flour 1/2 C chestnut flour 2 t baking powder 1-1/2 t baking soda 1 t ground cardamom 1 t ground ginger 4 eggs 2 C organic raw sugar 1 C unsweetened applesauce 1/2 C olive oil 1 C chopped pecans 1 T anise seeds Preheat oven to 350. Whisk all wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Fold in dry ingredients until just moistened. Scrape batter into cupcake liners and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Because my Mothers' Day adventure required us to leave the house at seven thirty in the morning, I needed a quick and portable breakfast that we could wash down with yogurt smoothies while on the road. This is what I came up with...and it was delicious! Brown sugar. Butter. Rhubarb. Yum! 2 C organic dark brown sugar 1/2 C butter 1 egg 2 C rhubarb stalks, chopped 1 C buttermilk (or 1 C milk + 1 t white vinegar) 1 t baking soda 2 C white whole wheat flour 1 t pure vanilla 1 t pink Himalaya salt 1 t cinnamon Cream together 1 1/2 C brown sugar and butter. Add remaining ingredients except for the cinnamon and pour into muffin tins. Mix remaining sugar with cinnamon. Sprinkle over batter. Bake in 325°F oven for 40 minutes.

A couple of weeks ago I made some Coco-Ginger MOffins (mochi + muffin = MOffin).  Since it was such a hit, I made a variation this morning: ChocoCoco MOffins.  I think the addition of the unsweetened cocoa powder dried out the batter, so I added another egg to the mix. 4 eggs 1/2 C canola oil 2 cups milk 1/2 C organic granulated sugar 1 T baking powder 4 T unsweetened cocoa powder 2 t ground ginger powder 1 box of rice flour young coconut in a jar Mix the eggs and oil. Then mix everything else except for young coconut. Pour half the batter into muffin cup, add about teaspoon of young coconut, top it off with more batter. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375˚F till the top of the MOffin is slightly browned and firm to the touch.

When I had to attend an early morning meeting today, I needed a quick, easy, and portable breakfast for the boys. That, plus a few gluten-free attendees at the meeting, meant one thing: chestnut flour! So I adapted my recipe for my Chocolate-Beet Loaf Cake and made a batch of Chestnut-Chocolate-Beet Muffins. 2-1/4 C chestnut flour 1/2 C salted butter 1-1/2 C organic granulated sugar 1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder a dash of ground ancho chili 1/4 C organic beet juice 2 large eggs 1 C small curd cottage cheese 1 T pomegranate balsamic vinegar 1 T baking powder Preheat over to 350 degrees. With a hand mixer, cream butter and sugar until lightened in color and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add cottage cheese and beet juice to the mix. Using a spatula, gently stir in flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Stir in pomegranate balsamic vinegar.  Batter should be somewhat thick. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins and bake for approxi...

So, that is not a typo.  I do not mean 'muffin.' Mochi + Muffin = MOffins.  When my friend posted a recipe for MOffins , I was out of rice flour.  But after Chinese New Year I had both rice flour and leftover red bean filling from my mooncakes .  So this was a 'must try' this morning...with my typical variations, of course...especially since I didn't have any matcha powder. 3 eggs 1/2 C canola oil 2 cups milk 1/2 C organic granulated sugar 1 T baking powder 2 t ground ginger powder red bean filling 1 box of rice flour (I actually didn't have a whole box because I had used 1 C for my mooncakes.  I substituted some coconut flour) Mix the eggs and oil.  Then mix everything else except for red beans.  Pour half the batter into muffin cup, add about teaspoon of red beans, top it off with more batter. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375˚F till the top of the MOffin is slightly browned.

I am finally getting around to using the fennel pollen sample that my friend Jenn Erickson gave me around the holidays.  It's not that I haven't had all sorts of ideas; I think I was hoarding it until I knew I would have more.  So now that my order of a full ounce of pollen came in, I'm free to create!  I whipped up some olive oil fennel muffin this morning for breakfast. 4 eggs 3/4 C organic granulated sugar 2/3 C olive oil (use a good quality, extra virgin olive oil) 1 T fennel pollen 1-1/2 C white whole wheat flour 1 T baking powder 1/2 t pink Himalaya salt Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep your pan - either butter a loaf pan or use lined muffin tins. Beat the eggs in a large bowl for about 30 seconds. Add the sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is frothy.  Continue beating and drizzle in the olive oil slowly.  Gently fold in the fennel pollen.  In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients - flour, salt and baking powder....

I was intrigued by a friend's post about moffins (mochi + muffin = MOffin) , woke up excited to try them, and realized that I had used all of my rice flour a few weeks ago. Bummer. So I decided to make some coconut flour muffins instead. They're more like a coconut custard in the shape of a muffin. And they might need some sugar if you want a sweeter treat. But they were delicious! 1-1/2 C organic coconut flour 1C butter, melted 12 eggs 4 T ginger syrup 1 t salt 1 T ground ginger 1 T pure vanilla 1 t ground cinnamon 1 t ground nutmeg 2 t baking powder sweetened coconut flakes for the top Blend together eggs, butter, ginger syrup, vanilla, and salt. Combine coconut flour and spices with baking powder and whisk thoroughly into batter until there are no lumps. Pour into cupcake liners or a greased loaf pan and sprinkle sweetened coconut over the top. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

If you frost a muffin, it transforms into a cupcake, right? 1/2 C butter 1/4 C organic granulated sugar 3 C white whole wheat flour 1/2 t salt 2 t ground ginger 1 t cinnamon 1 t nutmeg 1 t all-spice 1 egg 1 C hot water 1 C unsulfured molasses 1 1/2 t of baking powder Cream sugar and butter, add dry ingredients, add egg, molasses and water, stir until completely moistened. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Frosting: 1 container of marscarpone cream, 1 brick of cream cheese, 1 stick of butter, 2 C powdered sugar, freshly squeezed juice from one small lemon. Blend all together with a hand mixer. Spread evenly over muffin.

Steel yourselves. Just as October spawned a glut of pumpkin recipes, I am entering December on a similar gingerbread kick! I love the kick of ginger and the richness of molasses. To stave off the morning chill, I whipped up a batch of gingerbread muffins and served them with chilled eggnog. Yum! 1/2 C butter 1/4 C organic granulated sugar 1 C chestnut flour 2 C white whole wheat flour 1/2 t salt 2 t ground ginger 1 t cinnamon 1 t nutmeg 1 t all-spice 1 egg 1 C hot water 1 C unsulfured molasses Cream sugar and butter, add dry ingredients, add egg, molasses and water, stir until completely moistened. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. I like my gingerbread dense and almost pudding-like. If you like a lighter, more cake-like, gingerbread. Add 1-1/2 t of baking powder to this recipe.