It's 5 O'clock in the Morning

Listening to: 5 O'clock by T-Pain ft. Lily Allen and Wiz Khalifa.

After I mastered the Banana Brown Betty from Joy, I got gutsy and started dreaming about muffins. I had read somewhere recently that sometimes things that are marketed as muffins don't always have real fruit in them (fake, man-made blueberries... really guys?) and it disgusted me. This was the same nonsense stumble that told me orange juice can sit in vacuum sealed vats for years... ew. Google it real fast to see what I'm talking about.

These muffin and orange juice revelations have given me severe breakfast separation anxiety, so I've had to start making my own muffins. Orange juice I simply replaced with chocolate milk. Easy enough, but being creative with muffins is seemingly difficult for me (see previous post about hating to bake).

I typically spend the first 10 minutes of my morning lying in bed and thinking about what will get me through the day, and for 3 days my thoughts were all about muffin filling. On the third day she rose again and went to Trader Joe's. There, I found Trader Joe's Honey Apple Butter and some terrible chile spiced mangos.

I fed the mangos to my sister and decided to use the butter as the filling in my muffins!

I took the recipe for basic muffins out of Joy and adapted it to my own use, which is apparently super easy to do with muffins according to The Book. Here goes!

Basic Muffins with Milk or Cream

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a standard muffin pan.

Stir together in a small bowl and set aside:

1 1/2 cups vanilla wafers, crushed

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 stick butter

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Whisk together in a large bowl:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Whisk together in another bowl:

2 large eggs

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2/3 cup of sugar

1 stick of melted butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and incorporate carefully without over mixing. The batter is not supposed to be smooth. Spoon in enough batter to fill half of each well. WITH CLEAN HANDS, make an imprint in the batter and spoon in a small amount of the Trader Joe's Honey Apple Butter. Use the rest of the batter to cover the butter. Press the vanilla wafer crumb mixture into the top and dust with ground cinnamon. Put in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes! Remember, it's easier to give time then to taketh away. :)

I would make this recipe again, but most likely I would sub nutmeg with cinnamon, the nutmeg taste was overwhelming with the Honey Apple Butter. Also, don't make the mistake of overheating the stick of butter because it will scramble the eggs! Happy Baking, I know it was for me.

Stay tuned for next week! I'm going to master cookies.