Sugar & spice

I've thought of another thing that made January the pits: no baking. No baking! No wonder I was wallowing around in the dumps.

How I love to have a good reason to bake (beyond just the two of us stuffing ourselves silly), and within the last couple of weeks, excuses have been popping up all over.

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I may have shared this recipe before, but it's so fantastic, it deserves a second appearance. Muffins are my favorites to bake (at least right now); they're such tidy little packages of comfort, they usually require only one bowl, and they freeze so well. I've used this recipe for ages, and I can't remember where I found it, although I do think it was originally meant for a loaf of bread.

Banana Cinnamon Swirl Muffins
3 over-ripe bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
Dash salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Preheat to 350 and grease a muffin tin (that non-stick cooking spray with flour is great for muffins). Mix together the bananas, butter, sugar, egg & vanilla. Sprinkle soda & salt over banana mixture. Add flour & gently stir, being careful not to over-mix. Spoon a bit of batter into each cup & sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Top with more batter & more cinnamon sugar. Bake about 20 minutes (18 for me because our oven runs on the hot side.) 

*Add chopped walnuts for extra yum! Be generous with the cinnamon sugar!

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And now prepare to have your socks knocked off. As far as I'm concerned, this is the Pioneer Woman's greatest culinary triumph. (Her recipe is intended as a layer cake, but I use it for cupcakes, and it makes a pile. Around 22, I think.)

Coffee Cream Cupcakes 
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
3 Tbsp instant coffee crystals
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and line two muffins tins with cupcake papers. Mix together the flour, sugar & salt. Melt butter over medium-low heat. While melting, add coffee crystals to 1 cup boiling water; set aside. When butter has melted, add the coffee & let come to a boil about 10 seconds; set aside for just a minute. In a separate bowl, mix together buttermilk, eggs, soda & vanilla. Pour the butter/coffee mixture into the flour & stir gently. Add in the egg mixture & stir gently until combined. Fill papers 3/4 full. Bake about 18 minutes. 

I made these yesterday for a friend's birthday and you can see that I very thoughtfully ate one to make sure they weren't poisonous:

Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, at room temp

2 Tbsp milk or cream

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

2 cups powdered sugar

4 tsp instant coffee crystals

Beat cream cheese & milk until smooth. Beat in vanilla, salt, powdered sugar & coffee crystals.

*This isn't the Pioneer Woman's creation; I found it on the internet, but again, can't remember exactly where. The consistency ends up being fairly thin; the batch I made this morning was definitely much too runny for piping & actually seemed more like a glaze. Adding more cream cheese and powdered sugar would bulk it up enough for piping, I think. 

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This has nothing to do with baking, but I've been awfully hard on winter, so here's some evidence that it hasn't been all gloom & doom: