Ham and Scalloped Potato Muffins #MuffinMonday

A scalloped potato casserole-inspired muffin, with sliced potatoes, lots of cheese, cream and smoked ham. Perfect for breakfast, snack or even lunch. 

For the last couple of weeks our house has been a bustle of creativity and laughter, both in and out of the kitchen. Favorite dishes were cooked, touristy places were visited, a gingerbread mosque was baked and erected, many a cocktail was imbibed and a thousand backgammon games were played amongst the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree and our ancient rag-tag manger scene, which includes such witnesses to the Miracle Birth as a headless wise man, a longhorn and a small rhinoceros, along with the usual shepherds, cows and sheep.

Now the busy bathrooms and crazy kitchen are empty. The forlorn tree, stripped naked of its finery but for the occasional missed wisp of golden tinsel, has trailed fallen needles all the way to the curb of rejection. The dog circles just me now, every hopeful. And the baby Jesus and his eclectic entourage are back in the doll stroller box from Christmas circa 1995, which is their home for 50 weeks of the year.

I look around at the now reassembled living room, furniture back in its accustomed places and I am working on being grateful rather than sad. As much as it would give me joy to keep our daughters with us always, I am grateful that they are exceptionally capable of looking after themselves and are avidly pursuing their dreams.

Trying to look on all the bright sides of this situation, another bonus is that I can cook and bake exactly what pleases me. Last week a post from a friend and fellow blogger Kelli from Kelli’s Kitchen arrived in my email inbox with a recipe for one of my favorite casseroles, scalloped potatoes. Her version is a family favorite, cheesy and creamy but with the welcome addition of ham. If that divine top baked to a golden crunch doesn’t sell you, the tender, cheesy potatoes inside should do the trick. Do go have a look. My thoughts turned, as they do, to the possibility of a ham and scalloped potato muffin but I figured it wouldn’t be very popular with the sweet muffin crowd in residence. So I waited a week. (As it turns out, most of them didn't buy the PR for dried plums vs. prunes anyway. Hey, I tried.)

Totally worth the wait. These guys are delicious. All potato-y and cheesy and that ham? The perfect addition, for sure.

A good savory muffin is great consolation. And you can be sure I have saved some ham to make the original casserole as well.

Ingredients
6 oz or 170g smallish new potatoes
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
2 eggs
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml whipping cream
1/4 cup butter or 60g, melted and cooled
7 oz or 200g extra sharp cheddar, grated
2 1/3 oz or 65g Parmesan, grated
1 cup or 150g baked smoked ham, chopped

Method
Put a pot of water on to boil with a teaspoon or so of salt, as you would to boil pasta. Fill a bowl with cold water and a few ice cubes and set it aside.

Slice your potatoes and pop them in the boiling water.

Cook for about 4-5 minutes, until they are just done. Pour the cooked potato slices into a colander and drain. Transfer them to the bowl of ice water till cool.

Return them to the colander to drain again.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it liberally with oil or non-stick cooking spray.

Combine your flour, baking powder, salt and mustard powder in a large mixing bowl.

Set aside 6 slices of the cooked potato and a couple of small handfuls each of the cheddar, ham and Parmesan for topping the muffins before baking.

Just a little pile of each for topping.

Add the rest of the cheddar into the dry ingredient bowl and stir.

Now add the rest of the sliced potatoes into that bowl. Use a spoon to break the slices into pieces as you stir to combine. Finally, mix in the Parmesan and the ham.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, milk, cream and cooled butter.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stop when they are just combined.

Divide your batter between the 12 greased muffins cups.

Top with reserved Parmesan cheese and ham pieces. Cut your potato slices in half and insert one half slice of potato into the batter in each cup.

Now try to get some reserved cheddar cheese to sit on top and around each potato slice. We aren’t looking for perfect here. Just some cheese on the potato.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to continue cooling on a wire rack.

Since the cheese melts out a little while baking, you may have to run a knife around the outside to remove them, depending on how well you greased the pan.

Enjoy!

Dried Plum Honey Muffins #MuffinMonday

These delicious muffins are sweetened with chopped dried plums - formerly known as prunes - cooked briefly with honey and a little Cognac, which softens them slightly and plumps them up but still leaves them nice and chewy. Great for breakfast or with a cup of tea at snack time.

Dried plums are just prunes with a better public relations campaign. Back in 2000, the California Prune Board received permission from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the name, citing research that the fruit would sell better if it lost the negative moniker prune, more commonly associated with things old and wizen and past their best. 

That organization has since become the California Dried Plum Board and sales have indeed improved dramatically, a result I figure is akin to the Hollywood studios renaming future stars Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson and John Wayne, back in the day.

Salt prunes

As a child, I knew two types of prunes: Salt prunes, which are completely desiccated, salty, sweet and sour, which I adored, and the stewed kind. It was hard for me to fathom that these were even remotely related. Swollen and mushy, dark and forbidding, I avoided the black ones with all the ingenuity a repulsed child can muster. Which is to say, a lot. 

As I got older and more adventurous, I learned that soft dried prunes could be eaten as is, like very large raisins and, although they were still dark and a little scary looking, they were actually sweet, chewy and rather tasty. It was a happy turning point. Turns out soft dried plums are pretty healthy too. If you hated prunes as a child, it might be time to give soft dried plums a chance.

Perhaps someday the lowly prune or I should say, the soft dried plum, will become, like Norma Jeane Mortenson, Roy Scherer and Marion Morrison, as popular as it deserves to be, even as we all giggle at the original name. Here’s my effort to forward that goal.

Ingredients
Generous half cup, chopped roughly, or 110g soft dried plums
1/3 cup or 80ml honey
2 tablespoons Cognac or Armagnac
2 cups or 250g flour
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup or 120ml buttermilk
1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil

Method
Put your roughly chopped dried plums in a small pot with the honey and the Cognac.

That golden color is from my UAE honey. Well, and the Cognac.

Bring to the boil and then take the pot off the stove and allow to cool.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it liberally or lining it with paper muffin cups.

In one big mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another smaller bowl, whisk the egg with the buttermilk and oil.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until just combined. There should still be lots of dry flour showing.

Take out a couple of spoonfuls of the dried plums with syrup to add to the top of the muffins before baking.

 Then fold the rest into the batter.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups.

Top each with a piece or two of the honeyed dried plums with a little syrup.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin pan and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Fresh Cranberry Muffins #MuffinMonday

A delicious muffin made with fresh cranberries in a vanilla batter which lets the cranberry flavor shine through. These babies would be perfect for Christmas morning or for bringing along to a Christmas brunch. 

T'is the season for fresh cranberries in the United States, and from the looks of the refrigerated supermarket shelves here in Dubai, the trend has spread. Last year I had a comment on muffins I had made with dried cranberries, asking if they could be made with fresh as well. So this recipe is for my friend, Marilyn, who lives in cranberry country, that is to say, the US northeast. I have been a regular reader of her blog, Communicating Across Boundaries,  since I connected with her through a post about Egypt, where I was living at the time and she had lived for many years. I knew I’d met a kindred expat spirit as I read about her struggles to fit in and at the same time maintain traditions while living overseas and raising children. And with the challenges of moving back to the US after a life abroad. Every word she publishes enlightens me and makes me think. If you are a third culture kid or are raising some, I am sure you will love her too.

Along with fresh cranberry muffins, may each of you enjoy the wonderful Christmas I wish also for Marilyn and her family!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 170g fresh cranberries
1 cup or 200g sugar, plus two tablespoons
2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it or by lining it with paper muffins cups.

Chop the cranberries roughly and put them in a bowl. Separate 12 little pieces of cranberry to top the muffins with before baking, if desired. Sprinkle the rest with the 2 tablespoons extra sugar and toss to combine.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the rest of the sugar and the flour, along with the baking powder and salt.

In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, melted butter and vanilla.

Add your sugared cranberries in the dry ingredient bowl and toss them lightly with a spoon to coat them.

Fold your wet ingredients into your dry ones until just combined. You may still see a little flour showing and that’s okay.

Divide the batter between the muffins cups. Top with reserved pieces of cranberry, if you kept some back.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Eggnog Muffins with Eggnog Glaze

These delicious eggnog muffins with eggnog glaze are redolent with bourbon, eggnog, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, are perfect for an easy Christmas morning breakfast or afternoon treat.

It's Muffin Monday at my house, so you know I had to make a Christmasy muffin for you. My current motto is Eggnog everything! If you agree, you'll also want to check out my grandmother's homemade eggnog recipe, my beautiful eggnog pound cake and easy eggnog mousse, a boozy dessert the adults will love.

Eggnog Muffins with Eggnog Glaze

Ingredients
For the muffins:
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1/2 cup or 100g light brown sugar
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml eggnog (store-bought or homemade)
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1/4 cup or 60ml bourbon
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the eggnog glaze:
1 cup or 125g confectioners or icing sugar
2 tablespoons eggnog
1 teaspoon bourbon
Pinch salt

Optional: Decorative sprinkles

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare your muffin pan by greasing it or lining it with paper muffin cups. degrees.

In a medium bowl mix flour, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

In a large bowl whisk your eggnog, oil, bourbon, eggs, and vanilla.

Fold your wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. A little flour will still show and that’s fine.

Divide your batter between the muffin cups.

Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool briefly in the pan. Take the muffins out of the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, mix all of your glaze ingredients together in a small bowl.

When the muffins are completely cool, drizzle on the glaze and sprinkle immediately with decorative sprinkles, if using.

Enjoy! Here's to eggnogging all the things!

Pin it!

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Almond Joy Cupcakes #CupcakeDay

All the joy of coconut and almonds, baked into a dark chocolate cupcake, made easy to assemble by using the muffin method: one bowl of wet ingredients poured into one bowl of dry ingredients. What could be more festive or easier?

Every week on this blog, I celebrate Muffin Monday with a new muffin for you, sometimes sweet and sometimes savory. Muffin Monday is a made up holiday but that doesn’t make it less festive or important because if you can start your week out with something tasty from the oven, it’s going to be a better week automatically, than if you didn’t. This week, I am joining a lovely group of bloggers for another made up holiday: Cupcake Day. After all, what is a cupcake but just a dressed up muffin? That really is the dividing line for me. Muffins can be glazed but never frosted. A big pile of icing is reserved for cupcakes. For my Almond Joy Cupcakes today, I took the middle ground and topped the muffins with one toasted almond, as they do in Almond Joy candy bars, and poured a lovely heaping helping of semi-sweet chocolate ganache over the top, after stuffing the batter and the center with sweetened coconut flakes.

Many thanks to Coleen from The Redhead Baker who spearheaded this fun celebration and handled all the hosting responsibilities!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
1/2 cup or 50g ground almonds
3/4 cup or 150g white sugar
1/3 cup or just over 27g unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons or 200ml coconut milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 oz or 100g semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 3/4 oz or 135g sweetened coconut flakes - divided

For the topping:
1 cup or 240ml whipping cream
8 1/2 oz or 240g semi-sweet chocolate chips
Pinch salt
12 toasted almonds

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin tin by spraying with non-stick spray or lining it with paper cups.

Combine your flour, ground almonds, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, coconut milk, oil and vanilla extract.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stop when it’s still quite dry looking.

Add the chocolate chips for the batter and about half of the coconut. No need to measure, just eyeball. Stir until just mixed.

Spoon half your batter into the 12 cups.

Use your fingers to make balls out of the remaining coconut.

Tuck one in the batter of each cup.

Top the coconut balls with the remaining chocolate batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile you can be making the ganache. Put the cream in a little pot or a microwaveable bowl and heat till just before boiling. Remove from the stove or microwave and pour in the chocolate chips and the pinch of salt and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.

Set aside to cool. It should thicken as it cools but should still stay a pouring consistency. If it thickens too much, rewarm it gently.

When the cupcakes are done, remove them from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to continue cooling on a wire rack.

When they are completely cooled, dab on a bit of the chocolate ganache and stick one toasted almond on top of each.

Allow to set a little then spoon on more ganache to cover the almond and the cupcake.

Enjoy!

Looking for ways to make this week even better? How about baking one - or many -  of these 26 wonderful cupcakes?

• Almond Joy Cupcakes by Our Eating Habits
• Almond Joy Cupcakes by Food Lust People Love
• Buttered Rum Cupcakes by Adventures in All Things Food
• Candied Buddha's Hand-Eggnog Cupcakes by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Cupcakes with Candied Butter Pecan Frosting by From Gate to Plate
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes by The Cooking Actress
• Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting for 2 by Kate's Recipe Box
• Chocolate Cupcakes with Red Velvet Frosting by {i love} my disorganized life
• Cone Head Cupcakes with Ice Cream Frosting by The Spiffy Cookie
• Cranberry Apple Cupcakes by The Pajama Chef
• Cranberry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream by Cheese Curd In Paradise
• Cupcake Christmas Wreath by Lick the Spoon
• Dark Chocolate Rum Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream by Lemony Thyme
• Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Gingerbread cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting by Eva Bakes
• Hot Cocoa Cupcakes by The Redhead Baker
• Lemon Cupcakes by Miss Information
• Maple Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Mint Chocolate Cupcakes by Basic N Delicious
• Nerds Cupcakes by Amy's Confectionery Adventures
• Peppermint Cream Cookie Cupcakes by Take a Bite out of Boca
• Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cupcakes by Kosher Kitchen
• Peppermint Patty Cupcakes by Comfortably Domestic
• Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Biscoff Marshmallow Buttercream by Making Miracles
• Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Vanilla Candy Cane Cupcakes by Noshing With The Nolands
• Vegan Midori Melon Cupcakes by NinjaBaker