Cinnamon Swirled Muffins - #MuffinMonday

It's hot. Yes, yes, I know it's summer. Yes, I'm on a tropical island. Yes, it's supposed to be hot. I just don't think it's supposed to be this hot. I didn't grow up with air conditioning. On the hottest of days, I'd think about using a fan. These days if I move away from the fan for a minute, I feel like I want to die. It gets hard to breathe. I have started researching air conditioning options. Electricity is extremely expensive here but air conditioning is becoming a basic amenity. I guess this is global warming?

That has nothing to do with the muffins in this post - just in case you were wondering. We could pretend though. I could tell you that I dread turning on the oven because of just how hot the kitchen gets. Then I could tell you that these muffins were worth it. I'd be lying though. Wait. Let me explain. The muffins are good. That's true. But I used the toaster oven instead of the large oven. Sorry, muffins, you just weren't worth that much.

I have not been the best blogger lately. It's partly a lack of inspiration and mostly forgetting that I need to do something. We could bring things full circle and blame the heat but it's way more complicated than that. For this month's Muffin Monday, I decided to keep things simple. A simple vanilla muffin with some cinnamon swirled in. Cinnamon is my comfort zone. When I need to bake but can't think of a new thing to bake, I go for cinnamon rolls. These cinnamon swirled muffins bring me a similar comfort in much less time.

As usual, you will find links to the other Muffin Monday recipes below. Happy Monday!

Cinnamon Swirled Muffins

Yield ~9

Ingredients

Cinnamon Swirl

3 tablespoons butter, melted and still warm

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

Muffin Base

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a muffin pan.

Whisk together the cinnamon swirl ingredients and set aside. If the mixture becomes too thick, you will need to warm it in the microwave for just a coupe seconds. 

In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. In a separate container, whisk together egg, milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients - mixing until just combined. There may be lumps.

Fill each muffin well half full. Add about a teaspoon of the cinnamon mixture and gently swirl it into the batter. Add more batter on top top to fill the wells to about two thirds. You can fill a plastic bag with the cinnamon mixture and pipe it in a swirl pattern on top of each muffin. Or you can drop some of the cinnamon mixture on each and then use a toothpick to gently swirl the cinnamon into the batter. Be careful not to mix it too much. If the cinnamon mixture is hardening or difficult to swirl, warm for just a couple seconds in the microwave.

Place the muffins in the preheated oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

• Apple Blackberry Muffins by sew you think you can cook
• Cappuccino Chip Muffins by Palatable Pastime
• Cheesy Chile Corn Muffins (Gluten Free) by Farm Fresh Feasts
• Cinnamon Swirled Muffins by Passion Kneaded
• Fresh Peach Muffins by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Lemon Meringue Muffins by Making Miracles
• Phase 3 Muffins by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Raspberry Mini Muffins by Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.
Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

Pancake Muffins - #MuffinMonday

I have been going through a serious bout of baker's block lately. I spend long hours staring at and thinking about upcoming blog event themes but I just cannot seem to translate that into something that I want to make. Nothing sounds good. And when it does sound good, I am just not in the mood to make it or cannot find the ingredients that I need. I skipped last month's Muffin Monday because of this and almost skipped this one too. But then I remembered that a friend had emailed me about pancake muffins.

These are really simple to make and easily customizable. You could throw different mix-ins into each muffin or keep them plain like I did. They are not particularly sweet - which I love. This means that if pouring maple syrup over pancakes is your thing, you can still do that here. Best of all? You get your pancake fix in a much more portable form!


Check out all the muffins that the other bakers made for this month! No baker's block for them!

• Banana Bread and Chocolate Muffins from Making Miracles
• Chocolate Chip Blood Orange Muffins from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Grilled Cherry Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Jamaican Me Hungry Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Margarita Sour Cream Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Pancake Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Sweet Corn Muffins from Food Lust People Love

Pancake Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cup milk

2 eggs

4 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions

Grease the wells of a muffin tin. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, brown sugar, and salt. In a separate container whisk together milk, eggs, oil, vinegar and vanilla.

Gently mix together the wet and dry ingredients, mixing until just incorporated. The batter will be lumpy.

Divide among muffin wells. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until the muffins are lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page

Spinach Banana Blueberry Muffins - Crazy Ingredient Challenge

Each month we vote for the ingredients that will be used for our Crazy Ingredient Challenge. This means that, some months, the winning combination may be pretty straightforward or it could leave me scratching my head. This month's Blueberries and Spinach combo is closer to the scratching head part of the spectrum. Spinach and blueberries seem to pair naturally in salads. But I definitely did not want to make a salad. People seem to like them in smoothies too. I didn't want that either.

After tossing a few other ideas and realising time was running out, I decided on popsicles. I got the idea in the middle of the night and could picture beautiful two-colour popsicles - maybe even swirls. It sounded great until I remembered that I did not have my popsicle molds. So it was back to my default each month - something with flour.

These spinach, banana, and blueberry muffins aren't bad. I was actually pleasantly surprised. I am not going to lie to you and tell you that you cannot taste the spinach. You definitely can!! It's not a strong flavour but it's there - barely masked by the bananas. I could have played with the proportions some more but it's a spinach muffin! I wasn't trying to hide the spinach and it certainly is not an unpleasant taste.

Scroll down to see how the other challengers used the ingredients this month!

Spinach Banana Blueberry Muffin

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

4 oz spinach (by weight)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup banana

1/4 cup oil

2 teaaspoons vanilla

1 cup blueberries

Directions

Grease and flour the wells of a muffin pan. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.

Blend the spinach, milk, brown sugar, banana, oil, and vanilla until smooth.

Gently stir into the flour mixture being careful not to overmix. Fold in the blueberries.

Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin wells.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

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