Muffin Man

In honor of my favorite niece, I've started baking muffins. For those of you dear readers who know me, you'll know that I don't bake. I prefer to cook but for some reason, I've been on a muffin-baking craving. Yeah baking but not really eating. The first time I ever baked muffins, I made blueberry muffins but they didn't turn out so well. In Shaggy's words, they were "um, interesting". My second time, I made lemon poppyseed muffins and they were a hit! Shaggy ate one for breakfast and took one for his mid-morning snack.

I've learned that recipes for baked goods from Real Simple just aren't good. I've tried 3 of their baked goods' recipe and all 3 have sucked. I know, common conclusion is that I suck as a baker. BUT, I have baked several other things using non-Real Simple recipes and they have turned out good.

(FYI - Real Simple=magazine)

Anyway, next week, I'd like to bake banana muffins with mascarpone cream cheese frosting. Use the gang as guinea pigs again. I don't think they mind too much as long as I don't make the blueberry ones again. The muffins looked really yummy when Giada de Laurentiis made it on her TV show, Everyday Italian. I've made several of her recipes from her TV show and from her cookbook and all of them have been successful.

If you have a good recipe for muffins, please send them my way. Maybe one of these days, I'll also try making cupcakes, in honor of Mr. Apple's girlfriend (hey! you know who you are).

--MM