Break

Well, kids, it has been nigh a month since my last post. It really hasn’t been that exciting of a month, just busy busy, fraught with car problems, espresso classes, and enough cubicle drudgery to make my little soul dry up like a dehydrated strawberry*.

I have been baking though, attempting one new recipe a week and some weeks multiple versions of the same glorious thing.

So:

1) For V-day, I made Whisk Kid’s one-bowl chocolate cupcakes (the recipe she borrowed from Martha). She topped them with pistachios and a bright pink rose, while I wanted a more romantic take and so on top of a generous layer of chocolate ganache, I added a piece of strawberry (see- they’re on the brain!) and a light sprinkling of sea-salt. Yum!



I made them again a week later, and just to note- if the salt does not go on when the ganache is warm and gooey, it will just stick to the strawberry, causing none of the saltiness to mingle with the chocolate and creating a very awkward first bite.

2) This past week I have been feeling lazy, tired, at the end of my patience and physical ability to keep going at this pace. I work too much. I don’t get enough sleep. Blah blah blah… But I’ve made a little mental promise that on my nights off, I will expand my culinary catalogue and bake something new. So Sunday night I made a quick run to QFC for some pumpkin, chocolate chips, and eggs, and threw these muffins together. I emptied the package of chopped walnuts left over from Monday’s dinner party cake, so a little more than what was called for. I could not decide whether to use white or semisweet chocolate chips, and voila- there is such a thing as chocolate chips made with both!



Pumpkin-Chip Muffins (from here.)

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger**
1/2 tsp ground cloves**
1 tsp ground nutmeg**
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
4 oz unsalted butter, melted

6 oz chocolate chips (whichever kind you prefer)
1/2 cup of walnuts

Preheat oven to- you guessed it- 350 F.

Mix all dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, spices, baking soda, baking powder) together and set aside.

In a bowl, or in your stand mixer bowl, combine together eggs, pumpkin and melted butter. When mixed, add chocolate chips and walnuts.

Keep mixer running and add dry ingredients. Mix just until all the dry ingredients are integrated- you don’t need to thoroughly combine.

Pour batter into oiled/buttered muffin tins or paper muffin cups (I did not have on hand). I ended up with 13 muffins, so a full tray and one extra on a second tray that got infiltrated by my current ant problem before it reached the oven.

Muffins will cook for 15-20 minutes. After letting them cool for a few minutes in the pan, pop onto a cooling rack and don’t even try to resist eating them while they’re still warm and gooey.


*After one particularly wretched office day in which the life of Dilbert seemed a better alternative to my own, I wrote a cathartic little poem about my discomfort with Current Job. The only line even remotely salvageable was the strawberry line, and solely because it is such an entertaining mental picture.

** I did not have all of these spices on hand, shame on me. However, I did have Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie spice blend in my cabinet, which consists of all these and then some, so I substituted 2 tsp of this for the nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. And it worked out just fine.