Moving and Banana Muffins

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I'm leaving Berlin in three weeks. This is partly why I have been so quiet lately - I've had way too much to do.

This is the current situation in my living-room.

Up to this morning it looked so much worse but my parents helped me pack lots of stuff this weekend. And I sold my washing machine. After carrying a the beast down four flights of stairs I am convinced I'll never do crossfit - seriously...why would I want to lift crazy-heavy stuff or my own crazy heavy body for fun (and yes, before today I was totally toying with the idea of giving it a go)?!?!?

Anyhow...on the up side - three weeks to go till the rest of my stuff descends upon my parents' house and three weeks to go till I don't have to wear the stupid ankle brace from stupid land anymore. Wanna bet I'll fall down the same set of stairs with yet another box the second it comes off? 

Before I packed up the muffin tins (they're getting a tour of East Germany right now) I made banana muffins. The original recipe was from Felix Olschewski's Urgeschmack Dessertbuch which you should have a look at irrespective of whether you have allergies, are following a Paleo diet or eat pretty much everything. Also, if you don't speak German, buy it anyway and use Google translate. The first half of the book is about ingredients and he discusses their pros and cons in a way I really liked (in two sentences he pretty much convinced me to use honey rather than agave syrup). 

Anyhow, a few changes and 20 minutes (18 of which were baking time) after deciding to make muffins I was staring at these beauties

There are a few caveats though:

If you are looking for super airy muffin-top heavy muffins, make something different, they're quite dense and I doubt you'd manage to get them to overflow properly even if you filled them to the brim.

If you don't like coconut -  don't make them because they do taste of coconut.

If you are baking for a nut-free event - there are some almonds in there.

I'm sure there are lots of other things I could warn you about, the most important one is probably:

These are some of the nicest muffins I've made in a while!

 They are super moist from the banana, they don't have that baking soda taste to them most other muffins have (because the eggs and banana are used as raising agents), and last but not least, since I really like coconuts and bananas they are pretty much my personal version of the ideal food.

All right, you can preheat your oven now :)

Banana Muffins (adapted from Oschlewski)

4 Eggs

2 medium Bananas

50g Chopped Almonds

125g Desiccated Coconut 

40g Coconut Oil (melted)

Vanilla Extract (optional)

Pinch of Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180˚C.

Mash the bananas with a fork, then whisk the mush with the eggs until the mixture is frothy.

Add all the other ingredients and stir until things are just combined. I don't actually know whether that makes a difference for this recipe because I was worried I had combined them for too long and they didn't turn all solid and leathery or however you want to describe the weird state lots of other muffins go into if you over-mix the wet and dry ingredients.

Fill 12 lined muffin tins with the batter and bake for 18 minutes or until they start to brown.

Wait until they are cooled before you eat them. Trust me. It's worth waiting.

Spiced Brown Butter & Apple Muffins

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Are you enjoying autumn as much as I am? We seem to be having a lot more gorgeous days than cold and rainy ones and the leaves on the ground are beautiful. Plus, the tomatoes that I planted way too late (i.e. when I got back from Florida in May) seem to be turning into mini-tomato-factories so I feel like it's still summer. That and the fact that I get to see some amazing friends in three weeks (DC and Williamsburg, VA, here I come!) and that I am finally making some progress with the whole blog-redesign mean I'm loving the world these days.
But let's talk muffins - I made these for science-lunch at work the other week and after a bit of a disaster involving sticky apple-cinnamon rolls where everything that could have gone wrong pretty much going wrong (how come the one time I actually follow a recipe it turns out to be a really horrible one?!?), I decided to not listen to recipes anymore and just do my own thing. I got the inspiration for these from the introduction to the brown butter scones in Amy Scattergood's Good to the Grain but I wanted muffins not scones and I had some apples that needed using up....you know how that story tends to end. I like the crumb these muffins have because it is soft and springs back and there is a certain amount of lightness to it without being super fluffy like some shop-bought muffins can be.
Perhaps you should just try them yourself :)

Spiced Brown Butter & Apple Muffins
150g Apples, peeled and cut into 1cm pieces
300g Flour
100g Raw Cane Sugar
1tsp Salt
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp Ground Allspice
1/4 tsp Cardamom
125 ml Single Cream
250 ml Milk
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
100g Butter + more for greasing
2 tbsp Almond Flour


Preheat your oven to 200˚C and butter 15 muffin cups out of 24 (I have two 12-cup tins) - space them out evenly (i.e. don't just use all cups in the first tin and only 3 in the second).
Sprinkle the bottom of each muffin cup with some almond flour. I had originally hoped that the almond mixture would form a somewhat separate layer from the batter and would form a nice contrast. That didn't really work but the almond flavour forms a really nice backdrop to the muffins so the almonds get to stay.
Heat the butter in a saucepan and allow it to brown. Wait until you have brown spots forming at the bottom of the pan and your kitchen smells like brown butter heaven. Take the butter of the heat and allow it to cool down slightly.
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I really like how the spices pack quite a punch but it does have quite a Christmassy feel to it so if you want a toned-down version, I would use half the amounts of cloves, allspice and cardamom.
Whisk together milk, cream and eggs and once you have a smooth mixture, add the butter and the vanilla extract if you are using it. Combine the wet and the dry ingredients. Don't worry if you don't have a completely smooth batter - if you overwork the batter the muffins will become dense and chewy and simply not as nice as they turn out if you stop while there are still some small pockets of flour left in there.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a cake tester (or a dry piece of spaghetti) comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool down for 5 minutes or so before you turn them out on a wire rack to cool completely.
If you were to ask me I would recommend some coffee with these but I'm sure other stuff tastes really nice with them as well (it just won't keep you awake as well :) )

Blackberry & Oats Muffins

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There are flavours that remind me of home, of being a kid, of those long holidays, of my family.

I keep going back to those flavours.
When I eat rice pudding I think of the two summers my grandma and I spent on Sylt so I could breathe the sea air. There were sunny days as well, but most of my memories centre around the rainy days that we spent in this cafe overlooking the beach where they had rice pudding and Germknödel and milkshakes.
When I eat blackberries I think of sitting on my grandma's back-porch picking blackberries off the bush that extends all around the table as the heat radiates off the ground. The grown-ups are drinking instant coffee, the kids, drinking grain coffee, are feeling all grown-up. The cream for the coffee comes in one of those small plastic jugs you get at the supermarket. I think of how calm it always felt, how calm it always feels when I go there.
When I eat something with oats I think about these super fine oat flakes you can get in Germany and how my sister and I would eat those with milk and sprinkle (ok, it tended to be more than just a light sprinkling) sugar on top when our mum wasn't looking. I sometimes wake up at night remembering that flavour.
A few weeks ago I read Lisa's post on blueberry lime oatmeal muffins on Homesick Texan. And started thinking of all those things I just told you about. I thought about how I wanted to make muffins that would combine some of my favourite childhood flavours.
Shall we make some muffins?

Blackberry & Oats Muffins (makes 12)
100g Oat Flour (take porridge oats and whizz them in a blender or food processor)
200g Plain Flour
50g Almond Flour
100g Raw Cane Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Bicarb
1 tsp Salt
200g Blackberries, macerated in 1tbsp Sugar
125g Butter,  melted and slightly cooled
200ml Milk
100g Sour Cream
1 Egg


Preheat your oven to 175˚C and line a muffin tin with paper cases.
Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.
Whisk together the wet ingredients and then fold the wet mix into the dry mix until the two are just combined.
Scoop about a tablespoon of batter into each muffin case, then distribute the blackberries evenly across the muffins. Top with the remaining batter. I ended up with 12 fairly full muffin cases. If you would rather have smaller muffins, you could also use more muffin cases but I wanted domed muffins of awesomeness.
Bake the muffins for 25-30 minutes until the tops are golden.
Allow the muffins to cool slightly before turning them out on a wire-rack.
Now, go and find some milk because it's gonna go really well with a muffin!

Cinnamon, Raisin, Oatmeal, and Coconut Muffins

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What do you bring to a party when you don't really feel like baking?
The answer is muffins.

Yes, you're still using the oven, but they're soo quick you barely notice you're actually making them.

And they taste nice.

And these have oatmeal in them so you can eat the one you broke while taking the tray out of the oven for breakfast the next morning.

So after baking a batch of the Citrusy Blueberry Muffins and attempting to amputate my thumb with my microplane grater (you won't be getting any recipes involving citrus zest for a while...) I made a batch of these little lovelies and I must say I'll probably make another batch at some point during the week (because I liked them very muchly :) ).

That said, I used coconut extract. If you can't get hold of coconut extract (don't go for imitation coconut, very bad idea!) I would probably replace some (if not all) of the milk with coconut milk for the flavour.

Anyhow, let's make some muffins!

Cinnamon, Raisin, Oatmeal, and Coconut Muffins
75g Oatmeal
220g Plain Flour
150g Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon

75g Raisins

250ml Milk
2 Egg-Whites
55g Butter (melted and then slightly cooled again)
1/2 tsp Coconut Extract

Preheat your oven to 190˚C and line a muffin pan with 12 cups.
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Whisk the liquid ingredients together in a small bowl.
Then fold the wet mix into the dry mix until they're just combined (it's ok if there's still small bits of dry mix that don't look properly mixed, you really don't want to overmix the batter or the muffins will become chewy).
Pour the batter into the lined muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy one (or two, or three) with a glass of milk (or G&T...both work rather well ;) )

I hope you have a lovely rest of your weekend!

Citrusy Blueberry Muffins

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Today's recipe is for Valentin who just handed in his Master's thesis. I am so excited for you!!!
And to have the last word in our conversation about muffins from ages ago, here's my take on the blueberry muffin :)
These muffins are based on the blueberry muffins in Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito's 'Baked' and since they have blueberries in them I believe eating more than one will bring you closer to your five-a-day :)
Anyhow, they are super fast (25 minutes from when I started pulling the butter out of the fridge to taking the baked muffins out of the oven) so they would also make a lovely breakfast treat.

Citrusy Blueberry Muffins
Zest of 1 Satsuma and 1 Lime
125 ml Orange Juice
125 ml Milk
2 Egg Whites
60 g Butter (melt it, then let it cool)
40 g Ground Almonds
20 g Flaked Almonds
110 g Plain Flour
110 g Kamut Flour
170 g Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
75 g Blueberries

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin pan with 12 cups.
Mix all the liquid ingredients and the zest in a jug. In a medium bowl mix all the dry ingredients (make sure the baking powder is well distributed and there's no lumps - trust me, it really won't taste nice!). In a tiny bowl toss the blueberries in some flour (this will stop them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins).
Fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until they are just combined (remember: well-mixed muffins = chewy muffins), then fold in the blueberries.
Spoon the batter into the paper cases, then bake for 15 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Take the pan out of the oven and after another 15 minutes remove the muffins from the pan.
Enjoy your muffins with a glass of milk or a relaxing afternoon coffee and keep telling yourself that spring is nearly properly here :)