Muffins!

Oops! Hope that post that was just a title is gone... Apparently if you hit enter accidentally, the post gets published.

I made my first batch of muffins from scratch recently. While I was in San Diego for Christmas my mom made some amazing allspice streusel muffins and we talked about how we could change up the spices. Back in DC, I decided some cardamom streusel muffins would warm me up. Cardamom is my second favorite sweet spice, after cinnamon.

The recipe I started with is from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. Definitely a great book to take a look at!

In addition to substituting cardamom for the allspice I made a couple of other substitutions based on what I had in the house - half and half for milk, light brown sugar for white sugar.

Making streusel is super easy. You basically combine sugar and spices with cold butter.





Yum yum yum!! This stuff is sooo good. Dorie's recipe makes a lot, more than I needed for a dozen muffins, so I put the rest in the freezer right away. Better than eating a bunch of sugary butter with my fingers.

With the streusel I'd be using put in the fridge so it wouldn't melt before the batter was ready, I mixed the dry ingredients together...



And then the wet ingredients (yup, these are buttery suckers)...



And then dry and wet together.



The batter was a bit wet, but that's the great thing about Dorie. Her recipe lets you know that that's the way it should be.

I filled my muffin cups about 3/4 full and then sprinkled and gently pressed some streusel down on each.



As soon as these started baking, they smelled amazing. I would love it if my house smelled like that a lot more often.



This picture isn't that great, and the streusel melted down a bit more than it did with the ones my mom made, but man do these muffins taste amazing! If I make them again, I'll probably add a bit more cardamom to the batter; the amount in the streusel was perfect. You could also substitute other extracts for the vanilla extract. Mmm, maybe I'll use almond next time!

All in all, a pretty good result for my first muffins.