♥ Two-Layer Triple-Chocolate Cake ♥

     Smitten Kitchen is honestly my new hero.

    Seriously. When you're a girl, you're PMSing, and you want chocolate, there's probably nothing better than having a chocolate cake sitting in your fridge, where you can simply walk up and grab a slice at your whim.

    For the longest time, I've been on the hunt for a chocolate cake recipe. But not any recipe: one that actually works. I've tried hundreds, and...Okay, maybe not hundreds, but I've tried enough to become extremely frustrated when I try yet another "Award Winning" recipe, and it just falls flat: either because it's not chocolatey enough, it's too dry, it's too plain, bla bla bla.

    So, when I stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen, a wonderful woman who's a part time foodie/food blogger, I was a little unsure as to whether or not I should trust her recipes: after all, a baker can only have so much trust in recipes when they fall flat each time.

     But Lord, am I glad I trusted her. Honestly, I have never ever been so proud of myself before: this was the first cake I've ever made, and I'll give myself props for once: It came out perfect.

    Really, it did. I barely give myself any credit on that though, being that the wonderful recipe was adapted by her from a Gourmet magazine recipe. The cake was so beyond moist (but still had a perfect crumb), and it was very chocolatey: not bland with a barely-there chocolate taste like the typical Hershey recipe cake. The frosting was well, kind of like Chocolate Heaven smeared all over the cake, and probably could have been eaten from the bowl, if not for the tiniest bit of self control I had left by the time I finished frosting the cake. After letting it sit in the fridge overnight (and thinking about it the entire night), I couldn't wait any longer: by 1 p.m. the next day, I cut my siblings, cousins (who were over for a sleepover during my 7 Hour Baking Marathon that night), and I each a slice, and boy were there some happy campers in my kitchen, me being the happiest one. Aside from the fact that my taste buds were swimming in chocolate bliss, I couldn't have been anymore proud of myself: I made an entire cake, it didn't fall apart, it was actually edible, and my entire family couldn't get enough of it. My smile was stretching from ear to ear all day long.

    I'm not going to lie though: it wasn't easy to do. I mean, the actual process of baking the cakes itself was pretty simple, as was making the frosting. The actual putting together of the cake is where I became stumped: first, my frosting wouldn't really thicken (which I later learned that it needed to sit for at least 2 hours before spreading..I know, I'm a genius.), and second, I had no idea how to frost a cake. It always looked so easy when my mom did it, and trust me: she did it a lot. She's always making cakes, and I sometimes go into a trance watching her frost: I'm not sure how she does it, but she always seems to somehow get it to look messy and smeared on, yet perfect and neat at the same time. Sigh.

    As you can see above, my frosting skills are far from the greatest, but I found a simple way to hide that: a handful of chocolate curls, scattered all over the top of the cake. They're elegant, easy to make, and they actually taste good, as opposed to chocolate sprinkles, which really have no chocolate taste whatsoever (next pet peeve: unedible/tasteless food decorations.) Anyway, I tried my best on the frosting, but as you can see, I probably could have done a lot better. If you ask my family though, I don't think they particularly cared all that much.

    Anyway, aside from the extreme joy and pride I gained (along with the extra 10 pounds I'll have to work off now) from the cake after it was baked, frosted, and eaten , the actual process was quite the adventure. While making the cake, I had been making the frosting for my Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes, slicing up loaves of Banana Bread, taking care of five loud, hyperactive children, and trying to clean up after myself so I wouldn't be left with a huge mess at the end of the night, all at the same time. [I know, I'm quite the multi-tasker..] Needless to say, it wasn't the easiest night I've had in a while, but I didn't say I didn't enjoy every second of it.

  Regardless of how smooth I'm making everything sound (if even), there were quite a few moments I'll probably never forget from that night. Like the moment I flipped my first ever cake: I don't think I could have ever been more terrified. Would it come out clean, or would it break and chunks of cake would be stuck all over the pan? To my luck, the cakes flipped out perfectly onto plates. Yay for problem #1 avoided!

    A few minutes later though, just when I thought everything was going well, as I was standing above my stove, making sure the cream and sugar boiling on the stove wouldn't burn, a giant (when I say giant, I mean about 1 to 2 inches long) thing crawled out from under my fridge and just about gave me a heart attack. (You know how I said I didn't think I couldn't have been more terrified than when I was flipping my cakes? Yeah, I lied.) This mutant insect, which looked like some horrifying mixture of a spider, an earwig, and a centipede, started crawling toward me, flipping its little antennas toward me, and I pretty much died. I screamed (thankfully not loud enough to wake anyone, being that it was 3 in the morning.), dropped the whisk in my hand, bolted from the stove (away from my very delicate frosting mixture) and I jumped on a chair, not knowing what else to do.  Then I was stuck: do I let my cream burn, leaving me frosting-less? Or do I get over my phobia of terrifying, disgusting insects and just kill it? Well, as my cream started boiling, I had no choice: as I watched it come back out from under the fridge,I took my foot, and, while wearing my dad's over sized shoe, squished that little sucker until it was mush. I felt kind of bad for it as I vacuumed up it's remains, but as I imagined it crawling towards me again, all guilt was gone. In fact, I was slightly tempted to take it's little body, hang it on my door, and put a sign up telling it's little friends to beware, for this could be their fate. (Idea courtesy to my crazy, sadistic boyfriend. You know who you are. ♥ ) Lesson to all my insect "friends" out there? Don't get between me and my pastries.

    Anyway, after my insect-from-hell incident, it was time to frost. This seemed fairly simple at first, but as I began, the task became more daunting than I thought. I did my best though, but well, for anyone else, well: you may want to take a look at a few lessons before you begin. And, maybe a few more... (I can guarantee you'll do a heck of a lot better than I did.)

    Now, before I continue rambling on, lets get to the actual recipe part.

    The cake was simple to make; you don't even need a mixer (even though it makes things a lot easier.) No butters and sugars need to be creamed, no egg whites to be whisked; just two bowls and a mixing spoon to whisk this magic cake to perfection.

     What makes this cake even more perfect? The fact that the frosting doesn't require a mixer either! I wish I had known from the start though: in order for the frosting to thicken to a spreadable texture, it needs about 2 hours to sit and set up. It's a ganache frosting, meaning it's made from chocolate and cream; it's a heavenly combination, but unfortunately, it does take time to make.

    So, after about two essays worth of rambling, I hope I've convinced you to make this cake.

    I haven't?

    Well, let's give you more reasons then!

♥ It's amazing.

♥ It's chocolatey.

   No. It's beyond chocolatey. Like chocolate heaven, piled high on your spoon (or fork; your preference.)

♥ It's fudgy; like my Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownies, only in cake form (but not at all like a cake brownie. No, no, no.)

♥ It's magical. It will make you smile. It will make your taste buds sing to the Chocolate Gods above. It will make your children happy. It will probably pack on a few pounds to your tummy; but, it's worth it.

    Have I convinced you yet?

    Good.

    Happy baking! ♥

Two-Layer Triple-Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

(for two 10- by 2-inch round cakes)

♥ 3 ounces fine-quality semisweet chocolate such as Callebaut (I used Hershey's, and it came out perfect)

♥ 1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee

♥ 3 cups sugar (I didn't have enough white sugar on hand, so I did half granulated/half dark brown. Again, it worked out perfectly!)

♥ 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

♥ 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

♥ 2 teaspoons baking soda

♥ 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

♥ 1 1/4 teaspoons salt

♥ 3 large eggs, room temperature

♥ 3/4 cup vegetable oil

♥ 1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk, room temperature

♥3/4 teaspoon vanilla

1.) Preheat oven to 300°F. and grease pans. Line bottoms with rounds of wax paper and grease paper. (I just sprayed each pan with non-stick spray, and they came out fine.) 

 
2.) Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
3.) Into a large bowl, using a whisk, sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

 4.) In another large bowl, beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well.

5.) Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.
6.) Divide batter between pans and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.

7.) Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove wax paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

For Filling and Frosting:

♥ 1 pound fine-quality semisweet chocolate such as Callebaut (I used Hershey's)

♥ 1 cup heavy cream

♥ 2 tablespoons white sugar

♥ 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

♥ 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

 

1.) Finely chop chocolate. In a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan bring cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil over moderately low heat, whisking until sugar is dissolved.

2.) Remove pan from heat and add chocolate, whisking until chocolate is melted. Cut butter into pieces and add to frosting, whisking until smooth.

3.) Transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable (depending on chocolate used, it may be necessary to chill frosting to spreadable consistency) (It takes two hours for frosting to come to a spreadable consistency.) Or, I found that stirring this over a bowl of ice water did a great job of cooling it off quickly and evenly.

4.) Spread frosting between cake layers and over top and sides. Cake keeps, covered and chilled, 3 days. Bring cake to room temperature before serving.

 Enjoy! 

[I know I did.]

♥

♥ Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownies: Yes, just another Brownie Recipe to add to the Internet. ♥

 

    If there's one dessert I'm more picky about than cake, it'd probably have to be brownies. Everyone has pet peeves, right? Well, being that I can be a bit of a baking snob, I have tons of baked good pet peeves.

    The main offender?

    Cake-like Brownies.

    I honestly try to respect everyone and their opinions, I do. But for crying out loud: if you're going to eat a brownie, then people, please, for the love of God, just let it be the brownie it's supposed to be and make it fudgy. If you want a dry, non-fudgy "cake" brownie, then just eat a piece of chocolate cake. Problem solved.

    Clearly, I'm all for fudgy brownies: the richer, the better. So, obviously I'd post a recipe for an extremely fudgy brownie: never anything less, but you know..again, the more (fudgy), the merrier. :)

    Now, before I ramble on about how this recipe is probably the best brownie recipe out there, or how these brownies will just completely blow any other recipe you have out of the water...I'm just going to point out now that no, these probably aren't the most amazing brownies you've ever had, but to me, they come about as close as I've had.

    From blog to blog, bakers have adjusted and tweaked their brownie recipes to their likings, many using the oh-so famous brownie recipe from Ina Garten, my mother and I's cooking/baking hero. We've never tried her recipe for her outstanding brownies, but at this point, I think I'm perfectly okay with mine.

    These brownies are pretty much my go-to brownie recipe when I'm being my typical baking-snob-self and refuse to make them from the box (even though box brownies were one of my favorite things as a kid, and nothing can replace their nostalgic taste). This recipe can pretty much be tweaked to your liking: the chocolates can be varied from dark, to semi-sweet, or even to milk if you'd like. And, the espresso is optional: I personally love the combination of dark chocolate and coffee, especially since the coffee really brings out the chocolate flavor. My combination of choice is dark chocolate, espresso, and a few chocolate chunks thrown in here and there, so I suggest that. But, if you like nuts, marshmallows, or anything else not mentioned here, feel free to throw 'em in during the last step. They are your brownies after all: it's all up to you!

   This recipe is extremely simple to make. In fact, it doesn't even require any bowls! All you need is a large sauce pan, and you're good to go. I've made this recipe over 10 times (I used it for my final project in Cooking Class this year, which was a Cooking Demonstration. After making it once and messing it up due to my mis-reading of the ingredients, then once more when trying it again, then another 4 times before and during the demo, plus all the other times I've made it just for my friends and family...I can now truthfully say this a 1OO% CupcakeGirl approved recipe!) Even the most unskillful pre-chefs can make it, and I'm 1OO% sure they'll come out perfect.

    So brownie-lovers...Are you ready for some intense-chocolate-mouth-explosions? Yes? Yippee!

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownies

Ingredients:
♥ 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
♥ 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) dark chocolate (or, semi-sweet, milk, or bittersweet: it's your preference!)
♥ 1 cup white sugar (I realized I only had brown sugar on hand when I made them last, but they still worked fine.)
♥ 3 eggs
♥ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
♥ 1/2 teaspoon salt
♥ 3/4 cup flour (I usually use all-purpose [I always prefer unbleached], but wheat works,too)
♥ Walnuts, chocolate chunks, marshmallows, or any other preferred additions (for espresso flavor, I added 1/3 cup hot espresso made with instant espresso powder; regular hot coffee works just as well, too.)

1.) Preheat oven to 350°. Spray a baking pan with non-stick spray. (I prefer my brownies moderately thick, so I used a 9 by 9 pan.)
2.) In a large sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat on stove. Add chocolate, and stir until melted together.

3.) Whisk in sugar directly into chocolate-butter mixture until completely combined. Remove from heat.

4.) Whisk in eggs, vanilla, and salt. Add flour and mix until completely combined and smooth. (To ensure my salt didn't get clumped into one spot, I just sifted it quickly into the flour before adding it.)

5.) Mix in any extra additions, and add batter to pan. For my 9 by 9 pan, I baked them for 25-30 minutes. For anything bigger, I'd say time it for 20 minutes and go from there. Brownies will be ready when a toothpick inserted in comes out clean (I usually like my brownies a little undercooked though, so...). Let brownies cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting to ensure a smooth, clean cut. But, if you like hot, fresh brownies...dig in right away!

   The night I baked these, my younger cousins unexpectedly (to my other sister and I, who had no idea my siblings invited them over) dropped by for a sleepover, and I felt obliged to make them some sort of treat while they were here. Brownies seemed easiest (and c'mon; who doesn't love brownies?), and well....you can guess how much they were enjoyed.

Ready to have a choco-fudge-gasm? 
If not..well, we may have a problem then.

Enjoy!

♥

♥ Banana Bread ♥

    Oh, banana bread.

    The way we Americans can take the healthiest foods we have and turn them into such fattening, unhealthy desserts..It's a little funny, isn't it?

    Now, keep in mind how I'm not insulting us, because like any other American, there's nothing I love more than sweet, soft, moist banana bread (okay, there's a lot of things I love more, but still.) As a kid, I always remember sitting in the kitchen, watching my mom bake up all sorts of pastries: cookies, cakes, cream puffs, muffins, breads, and so much more. One of my favorites was always her banana bread, which sometimes she'd bake into muffins for me and my siblings. I never really counted it as dessert, but more as a snack. It's not hard to understand why I thought that way: after all, it's made with fruit and there's no chocolate in it, so to a small child, how could it possibly be a dessert?

    Well...maybe mine now would seem like dessert, being that if I have some on hand, I'll throw a handful of chocolate chips into the batter (to the dismay of my mother, who can't get enough of the chocolate-banana combination, even as she angrily rants that her hips can get well enough every time she eats it). This recipe originally came as a banana-nut muffin recipe from Allrecipes, and it worked great the first time I made it; my best friend, of whom apparently "loves everything I make", had 3 the day I brought them to school. Out of all the compliments I got on them, that probably tops them all.

    About a month after baking them into muffins, I made the recipe at home into loaves of bread. I was bored at home on night, and while I was rummaging through the pantry for Wheat Thins, I found a few bananas, too brown to eat, laying in the back, untouched. I remembered the muffins and decided to make some, but after making the batter, I realized I had no papers for my muffin pan. Being too tired to care at that point, I found a loaf pan and baked it anyways, and I'm glad I did: ever since, the recipe has been my go to banana bread recipe.

    This recipe, which is extremely simple, comes out perfect every time. There was once a time where I thought there was no way to mess up banana bread: it's so simple, and the bananas keep it perfectly moist; how could one possibly mess it up? Well, a few months back during my cooking class at school, our final project was a cooking demonstration in front of our class. One the girls in my class, part of the group of "popular" kids, demonstrated banana bread, and after watching her demo, I felt a little better about myself. The girl was a bitch to me all throughout my childhood, teasing me and making me feel, well, not as good as a I should of about myself (damaged self-confidence to this day? Unfortunately, yes.) But as we got older, the joke was on her: While I was still a nerd (but now proud of it) and she got more popular, I actually got smarter, while somehow, I think she may have stayed at the same intelligence level she had in 5th grade, only now knowing how to dress, act, and be the "strumpet" of our grade . I was right of course, because when I bit into the samples she gave to the class, it was a bittersweet moment: the dry, tasteless chunk of "banana" bread in my mouth was a sign that even if she was more "popular" than me, it really did prove her stupidity; only an idiot can truly mess up banana bread.

[Don't mind my immature ranting. I am, after all, a 16 year old girl. We're petty that way.]

    Anyway, back to the bread...

The recipe can make about 18 muffins, or about 2 small (2 by 5 loaf pan) loaves of "bread". It also doesn't call for chocolate chips, but like I said, my family prefers it that way, so I'll usually make two different loaves and only add some to one.

Also: the recipe calls for bananas, but what I've realized lately is that the more ripened the banana, the better the product. For those who don't know, the more ripened the banana (i.e. the browner, more "spoiled" it is), the sweeter the banana. I usually like to wait for bananas to get extremely ripe, but usually ahead of time, I'll place a few in a brown paper bag and store it in the pantry to speed up the process. If you're in a crunch for time, there's an even faster method for browning them:
    Preheat your oven to 400°. Place the bananas on a baking sheet (peel on) and bake them for 10-15 minutes, until they're mushy and soft, and the peel is completely dark brown, almost black. To "peel" the bananas, simply take a sharp knife and make a slit through the banana; it should cut easily, and by then, you can just squeeze the banana "mush" right through.

Oh, yum...Don't those 'naners just look so scrumptious? (Warning: once the bananas bake in the oven, they produce a very strong banana..."odor". I found it a little nauseating, and was unsure if I should use them at that point, but they worked perfectly. Also, when the bananas bake, they'll start to (...leak?). That's completely normal as well.)

Happy Baking! ♥

Banana Bread  

Ingredients:

♥ 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
♥1 teaspoon baking soda
♥ 1 teaspoon baking powder
♥ 1/2 teaspoon salt
♥ 3 bananas, mashed
♥ 3/4 cup white sugar
♥ 1 egg, lightly beaten
♥ 1/3 cup vegetable oil
♥ Chocolate chips (optional)


1.) Preheat oven to 375°. Spray pans with non-stick spray, or line muffin tin with papers.
2.) In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. (this can just be done by simply whisking all the ingredients together.)

 3.) In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and oil. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. (If you are adding chocolate chips to the batter, stir them in at the last step. I only added them to half the batter, and I used around 1/3 to 1/2 cup. For the whole batter, I'd say add an entire cup.) Spoon batter into pans.

4.) Bake in preheated oven. For the loaf pans I used above, it took about 30-40 minutes for each to bake together in the oven; for the muffins, it only takes about 15-20 minutes. 

5.) If using cupcake pans, remove muffins immediately and let cool on cooling rack. If using loaf pans, let pans sit until warm/almost cool. Flip loaves onto a flat plate, and slice each piece to your desired thickness. (I cut each slice to about an inch thick.)

Then...enjoy! 

As you can see..I'm pretty sure my family did.

♥

♥ Blueberry Muffins (and our Love-Hate Relationship) ♥

    I feel a cheer coming on.

    You know...probably just from myself, but hey, it's still a cheer.

    Why the cheering?

    Well, the picture above is... (drum-roll,) my first picture on the blog! Yayyyyy!

     ....Anyway,back to the muffins.
For some strange reason that I just can't understand, I seem to have some sort of...blueberry muffin curse. Maybe it's just with blueberries in general; I still don't know, but what I do know is that whenever I attempt to make something with blueberries, it just falls flat.

    In the past year, I've attempted 5 different muffin recipes, and none seem to work: either they're too dry, too bland, too tough, or just not sweet enough. This was extremely frustrating, especially since I had been using "award winning recipes" from all over; even one from my favorite recipe site, Allrecipes, seemed to fall flat, even after it got hundreds of rave reviews. Maybe it was just me, but if I've made a recipe 3+ times, I'm going to go ahead and assume it's not my fault. (Maybe.)

    Maybe trying to get a pastry to taste just like one from a snack machine is a little unrealistic, being that they're full of preservatives to keep them moist and artificial flavors for taste, but I can't help it. The muffins I recently made though, are the closest to a store-bought muffins I've come close to. Strangely enough, the recipe came from my mother's Neiman Marcus Taste cookbook, something I wouldn't even think of touching a few years back. The recipes, accompanied by beautiful pictures, we're very intimidating then, but now, seem a lot more simple than I thought.

    This recipe was simple enough: it doesn't even require a mixer, though I feel like it would make things a lot easier. It includes a lovely cinnamon crumble topping, which was actually my favorite part of the muffin. Now, maybe it was just me but personally, I didn't think they came out all that great. My family liked them, especially my father, who has a mini-obsession with anything blueberry and is a bit critical about his pastries, said they we're "really really good" (which either means they really were, or just said that to get me to hush up). They weren't dry, but they weren't unbelievably moist either. Like I said before, I especially liked the crumble topping. (cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter...you can't go wrong with that!)

    So, before I continue to ramble on....welcome to my first kitchen adventure!

Blueberry Muffins (Titled Anita's Blueberry-Sour Cream Morning Muffins in the Book)

Ingredients:
(for muffins)
♥ 2 ½ cups Cake flour
♥ 2 teaspoons baking powder
♥ 1 teaspoon baking soda
♥ 1/4 teaspoon salt
♥ 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
♥ 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, melted
♥ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
♥ 1 cup sour cream
♥ ½ cup buttermilk, well shaken
♥ 1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
♥ ½ pint of fresh blueberries, or 1 cup frozen

(for crumble topping)
♥ 1½ cups all-purpose flour
♥ ½ cup light brown sugar
♥ 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
♥ 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
♥ ¼ teaspoon salt
♥12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, room temperature

1.) Preheat oven to 35O°F. Place cupcake papers in lightly-sprayed cupcake pans (I ended up with about 18 muffins, but I overfilled a few, so I'd go with about 2O-22 muffins total.)

2.)To prepare muffins, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and set aside. (to sift together dry ingredients, you can just use a whisk and whisk them all together.)

3.) In another bowl, whisk together eggs and yolk, vanilla, melted butter, sour cream, and buttermilk. (As you stir in the sour cream, the mixture may look as if it's starting to curdle, but it's perfectly fine.)

4.) After liquid ingredients have been mixed, add sugar and mix completely. Gradually add flour mixture to liquid ingredients, and stir until combined. It is fine if the mixture still has lumps.



5.) Rinse blueberries to rid them of any dirt, and pat them dry. Fold them into the batter.

7.) To make crumble topping, place butter in a medium sized bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to butter, and using your fingers or a fork (fingers work better), break up the butter and incorporate the mixture until it becomes coarse and crumbly.

6.) Divide the batter equally among the muffin cups. Sprinkle crumble topping over each muffin. (I had left over topping, but this is probably because I didn't have as many muffins as I was supposed to. Only fill each cup no more than 2/3 of the way, if using a normal cupcake/muffin tin.)

7.) Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. . (My first tray dried out, and I left them in there for 13 minutes. Oven power varies for each oven, so begin checking muffins at 10 minutes.) Remove pan from oven and leave muffins on a cooling rack to rest

     And wa-la! Cute-sie little muffins...well, the ones that didn't come out like giant, over-filled blobs.
This is the best recipe for muffins I've found so far, so if anyone has a better recipe, or is feeling daring enough to tinker with this one, be my guest! It'd be lovely to get over my "Muffin Curse", but until then...Happy Muffin Making! ♥