First post!!!

After much encouragement from Erin, http://erindoescupcakes.blogspot.com/ a fellow OWU student and food blogger, I have finally started my very own food blog. Having just finished my junior year at OWU, I am home for a week before summer classes begin. And while I have my own kitchen at my apartment at school, I'm usually too cheap to buy ingredients to cook anything exciting. So most of my adventures in the kitchen take place when I am at my parent's house where I humbly take advantage of the abundance of food. 

Anyways, having taken on my summer habit of staying up all night, I decided to make muffins the other night at around 1 a.m. Using my trusty Joy Of Cooking, I found a basic muffin recipe to use as my blank canvas. Remembering the muffins my mom used to make from the box with that awesome streusel topping, I then found a recipe for streusel with which to top my muffins. With all my ducks in a row, I set out to make better-than-the-box streusel muffins. The recipe called for an optional 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg which I substituted with cinnamon. The added cinnamon gave the muffins a nice spicy touch. Next time I might also add the nutmeg.

Basic Muffins

Courtesy of Joy Of Cooking

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used cinnamon)

2 large eggs

1 cup milk or cream

2/3 cup sugar or packed brown sugar

4 to 8 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions 

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. 

-Have a standard 12-muffin pan greased or lined with paper cups.

-Whisk the first 4 ingredients together in a large bowl.

-Mix the remaining ingredients together in another bowl and add to the flour mixture. Stir just until batter is moist, do not overmix. 

-Divide batter into muffin pan, liberally top with streusel (recipe below)

Streusel I

Courtesy of Joy Of Cooking

2/3 cup flour

2/3 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans (I left this out and just added a little extra flour for binding)

2/3 cup sugar or packed brown sugar, or a combination of the two

5 tablespoons unsalted melted butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

-Blend all ingredients together with a fork or in a food processor until it resembles coarse crumbs.

-Top muffins and bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Overall I felt that this was a successful adventure, however, I felt the muffins were slightly bland. Next time I think I would double the streusel recipe and mix half of in into the muffin batter itself, and top with the remaining streusel.