Muffin Love

Muffins have magical powers.

Magical powers to brighten your day, that is.  I honestly love muffins.  I'd take a muffin over a cupcake any day, hands down.  They are second only to pie in my opinion.

This week has been a huge muffin week.  On Saturday, I went blueberry picking (and picked a ton! let me tell you).  So, I made some blueberry muffins and brought them into work on Monday.  I'm not a huge fan of blueberry muffins as I've found that they can greatly vary in goodness, but these ones were not that bad.  I followed a recipe I found on Pinterest, making it vegan so I could give one to my housemate, and it worked. The muffins only went up from there.

On the course where I work, we have a lot of apple trees.  Need a number?  probably close to 50 if not more.  There are a lot.  But I've never counted them so I don't know.  Many are clumped together because then the bees don't have to fly long distances to pollinate.  On Monday, one of my coworkers managed to get a number of good apples down from one such tree and I took some home.  Tuesday, I made Apple Cinnamon muffins.

Don't they look good?  These ones were fairly healthy with no oil or butter included.  The next day, I brought these lovelies to work.  Wednesday was a cold morning.  Normally, I go out with my green's mower and after 10, maybe 15, minutes I'm working up quite a sweat and by the end of my route (roughly two hours, give or take) I'm panting hard and soaked (sometimes also by sprinklers).  This Wednesday, even though I knew I must have sweat, I felt dry.  The wind licked the sweat right off in a dry kiss.  As I neared the end of my mow (only 1 1/2 greens left to go), one of my coworkers came driving by on our Tee Triplex with muffins in hand.  Apparently, the club house had given us a bunch as well.  He paused and handed me one then continued on his way.

Muffins = bliss.  I was content to pause for the moment to enjoy the muffin-y goodness (and it was scrumptious!).  Muffins can seriously brighten your day.

My all time favourite muffin of the summer was from last week, though.  A Banana-Zucchini-Choco-Walnut.  Can I hear a YUM! ?

 I know I can't wait to make these delicious morsels again!  Maybe you should go make some, too. ;)

To Make a Cake

I wouldn't call myself a chef or a baker or a great cook, really, but I like to try new things.  So far, this summer I've been able to try a number of new recipes, many of which have become favourites and will definitely visit my kitchen again.  Some of you know, but many of you do not know, that I live with a vegan.  She's newly vegan (as of May) and as a supportive friend, I try to vegan-ify recipes if I can.  This past week was her birthday, and so, in special honour, I made a special "cake" (if you will) as well as pumpkin pie (click for recipe).

A few months ago, I learned that Melanie loves watermelon.

Around that same time I saw this post on pinterest for a no-bake watermelon cake.  Naturally, I decided that I had to make this for her.  I'm not a huge watermelon fan myself, but I do like this refreshing fruit.  On Tuesday of this past week, I set out to the store and went through the process of selecting a melon.  I don't know if there's some technique to selecting the right one, but I just picked one that looked really green and was a good shape.  Next, I had to cut it into cake-like shapes.

  I'd never cut watermelon before and I had a bit of difficulty with getting flat surfaces for it to stand on, but I managed.  When it came time to make the icing though... that's where I ran into difficulties.  You see, I was making coconut cream (due to the whipped cream being dairy and thus not vegan) and so that the fat and liquid separate, you need to leave the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight.  I had left a can in the fridge, but it wasn't there when I went to make the cake.  I was on a bit of a time crunch, but luckily one of my friends was able to drive me to the store for a can, which I then had to leave in the fridge overnight.  Again, I was really lucky that the party was Wednesday.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck did not come with Wednesday.  I didn't manage to drain enough liquid from my milk meaning the icing was more like a syrup then a stiff whipped cream.  The icing oozed off the top and down the sides creating a white lake beneath my two pink islands.

It tasted scrumptious, yes, but just not... like it was supposed to.

 Melanie loved it though, which is all that matters.  Maybe I'll attempt the coconut cream again in the future, and maybe then it will work out well.  All in all, the party was a success and Melanie was really surprised.

Happy 21st to a Wonderful Friend!