Brown Butter, Pumpkin, Spice Muffin Goodness

A few weeks ago I ran across this recipe for Brown Butter Spice Cake.  I still had some pumpkin in the freezer and thought this sounded good, so I took the pumpkin out to thaw.

I have now made this recipe three times!  Well, each time it got a new variation...

Round 1
The first time was a double batch, I did follow the recipe on the website with the following exceptions:

• I didn't have any toasted hazelnut oil so I substituted butter as suggested by Heidi (the author of the blog post).
• I didn't have whole pastry flour, sea salt or natural cane sugar. I used regular flour and salt and 1/2 brown sugar, 1/2 regular sugar.
• I used my food processor to puree and then "whisk" in the eggs, sugar, butter and milk.
• I made muffins instead of bread.  I have to plan too much to have something in the oven for a whole hour. The muffins take about 16-18 minutes!
• I also put toasted almond slivers in only half the batter.  

Results:  Ended up with 18 muffins, plus some extra in my little corning ware dish.  We loved these!  I liked the ones with the nuts on top.  Patrick preferred them without nuts.  And we both felt the spices could be increased.

Round 2

The second time was a single batch, I changed the following (on purpose)

• I used bananas instead of the pumpkin - as they were taking up way too much room in the freezer.  
• I again skipped the toasted hazelnut oil.
• Instead of nuts I added milk chocolate chips to half the batter. (I was actually craving Mary's Chocolate Cake - but I didn't have all the ingredients for that, nor did I need a whole chocolate cake sitting around.)
• I added more of the garam marsala (1 1/2 tsp.) and cinnamon (1 tsp.)
• I did not sprinkle extra sugar on these ones.

Results: Made about 16 muffins. These were just ok. Perhaps, it was because I was really wanting chocolate cake, but they did not rise as well as the first batch making them kind of sadly flat.  They were good, but not overly so.

Round 3

The third time - this was a double batch again,  I changed the following (some on purpose, one not so purposefully)

• Again, no toasted hazelnut oil (I just don't have any on hand.)
• I used pumpkin - about 1 1/3 cup before pureeing because that is what I had.
• I added the following spices: garam marsala (3-4 tsp.), cinnamon (1 1/2 tsp.) and ground ginger (1/2 tsp.)
• I also added a rounded teaspoon of baking soda (from the last rather sadly flat experience.)
• I also added an additional 1/3 c. flour.  I knew I would have more pumpkin than I needed so I thought this would offset some of the extra moistness.
• My not so purposeful change was in the butter.  I put a stick of butter in the pan to brown and then made the recipe.  I was actually stirring in the "liquid" into the flour and noticed that the batter was rather dry.  Woops!  I turned around, pulled the beautifully browned butter from its cooling spot and poured it into the batter, stirring well to get all the stuff incorporated.  Did you catch my mistake here? I doubled the recipe, but not the butter.

Results: Made 18 muffins, plus my little corning ware pan. They were wonderful.  I loved the smell of them as they reached the end of their cooking.  The house filled with wonderfully fragrant smells.  I had to eat two of these while they were still warm.  I had part of my "extra" pan for breakfast the next day with hot chocolate. yuuummm!

It was as I was getting ready the next morning that I realized, "Hey! I think I forgot to double the butter."  After checking the recipe and realizing my mistake, I still had a good breakfast.  While the lower fat content made the muffins more bread-like, the extra pumpkin made up the difference.   And, slightly warm, you wouldn't notice a difference. 

Much Ado About Nothing

Or perhaps I should title should say "about the same as always".  My goal is to take more pictures this year.  (We'll see if that really happens.)  January is just about over and we are definitely ready for spring.  There is lots to do - a war to rage on the invading morning glory, grass to plant in the front yard, always work on the basement.  I have been knitting a lot.  Many babies being born around me.  I need to do better about getting more blankets done - and taking pictures of them.  I do have a knitting journal I started way back, but have not been faithfully entering the information.  A fair chunk of my Christmas money went to buy yarn.  I was soooo excited!

On the organizing front we finally made our hallway closet a bit more useful.  It is an odd shape - deep and skinny.  It had been stacked with boxes, but anytime I needed to get to something I had to pull out the boxes and then they would sit in the living room until I was done.  My goal over break was to organize the little closet.  We decided to utilize the rolling cart in the kitchen.  So we bought some replacement shelves for the kitchen, wiped down the kitchen cart and then my break was over :-(  I spent too many nights up late watching movies and knitting.

So, the long weekend in January (Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday), I said I was not going to sleep on Monday until the organizing was done.  We bought a bunch of project-sized boxes, I finally found my labeler and I went to work.  Stuff was moved. Stuff was thrown out. I found old projects and put them in their boxes with labels.  Now looking in the closet, it is still very crowded, but at least now I can roll out the boxes in the front to get to the stuff in back!

It was a long day - but very worth it!  Now if only my desk could get itself organized.

House Repairs

We talked all winter about the things that needed to be done when the weather got warmer.  More work on the foundation, flower beds need edging and mulch, clean out in between the windows, seal the windows better, clean and re-coat the front porch and the list goes on...However, spring and summer have come and are almost gone and most of the list still remains.  The garden got planted, but the two tomatoes never got moved to the front porch.  We've enjoyed our fresh vegetables, even if I haven't been the best at weeding.  And then came the leak, it was just a tiny one.  A tiny little spout off the main valve.  The plumber came to fix it and heard some additional hissing - more leaks in the concrete - just out of finger reach.  With a main water line dating from the 1930's we knew we'd have to replace it...it just wasn't on the list for this year. So for the past week we've had some unplanned (for this summer) renovations on the house.  I'm sure if my nieces and nephews were around they would have enjoyed watching the tractors.  As of today, it is still not done, but at least they haven't turned off the water yet.