Fresh Strawberry Muffins with Cinnamon Oatmeal Walnut Almond Streusel

I feel guilty, opening up this text box and starting a new blog like I haven't been MIA for almost two months.  Life blew up.  Sorry?  It doesn't mean I wasn't baking this whole time.  If you follow me on IG you know I'm in the kitchen almost every weekend.  I just didn't have time to blog about it all.  Work, Life, Sunshine... all that got in the way of me blogging.  Life has finally calmed down now, so I am able to play catch up. Starting with these muffins I made for my mom for Mother's Day... back in May.

I've mentioned before that I hate giving my mom any of my baking because she dislikes sweets and always says the same thing;  "Too much sugar!".  Drives me crazy.  So she got something without any frosting or icing or chocolate.  She got something full of strawberries.

Strawberries make me think of my childhood.  Although I am not from Watsonville, growing up we had family there so I learned to walk in the strawberry fields.  And one of my oldest memories is eating strawberries in the backyard after a summer rain, staring at the resulting rainbow.  Yes, I'm serious that is an actual memory.  I also had a puppy but she must have been elsewhere that day.  In any case, it felt appropriate to make these for my mom. 

Fresh Strawberry Muffins
Makes 15, Bake at 350* for 18 minutes

2 cups+ 2 tbls flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 cup diced, floured, fresh strawberries

Directions:
1. In one bowl, mix dry ingredients together and set aside.
2. In stand mixer bowl, add wet ingredients and stir until well combined.
3. Add flour mixture to wet mixture, 1/2 c at a time and mix on low until well incorporated.
4. Pour batter into lined muffin tins.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Walnut Almond Streusel:
2 tablespoons slivered almonds
1/3 cup walnuts
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
3 tablespoons melted butter

Directions
1. Mix together nuts, oats, flour, sugar and cinnamon.
2. Melt butter and pour over mixture. Knead together.  Mixture should be clumpy.
3. Measure out 1 tablespoon of streusel and sprinkle directly on top of batter in muffins tins.
4. Bake in oven for about 18 minutes.

I'm saving this recipe here and in my brain.  I love this streussel topping on most anything but on top of muffins filled with fresh berries?  Yum.   Eat these warm, right out of the oven or warm them in the toaster oven first.  You will be glad you did.

I promise I will be back sooner than 2 months from now.  :)

xoxo,
Anna

Strawberry Lemon Almond Bundt Cake

I normally bake cupcakes.  But last weekend, I baked this bundt cake.  Why?

1.  I went to Target and I fell in love with a cake pan. A gorgeous light teal bundt pan.

 

2. I pinterest.  And I ran across this a few weeks ago, and it was just begging to be baked. Begging!

3. I LOVE yogurt and strawberries.  I buy vanilla yogurt and slice up strawberries and shove them in the cup.  Nom. (Is it dollar strawberry season yet?)

 

And so it was pretty much decided for me when i rediscovered my pin last week that i had to go out and buy the pan.  Here is my version of the cake, with a few modifications added of course.  I upped the lemon and i added almonds.  Cuz we know how i feel about almonds...

Strawberry-Lemon Almond Bundt Cake

325*, 60 minutes for one 10 inch bundt pan

2 sticks butter, softened

2 cups sugar

3 eggs room temp

2 tablespoons lemon juice 

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

2 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

10 oz vanilla greek yogurt

12 oz diced strawberries

1/4 cup flour (for tossing strawberries)

1 table spoon almond slivers 

Directions:

1. In one bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt together.  Mix in lemon zest.

2. In a second bowl toss washed strawberries with remaining 1/4 cup flour and set aside.

3. In your mixer beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add lemon juice. 

4. Alternate between adding flour mixture and yogurt to the butter mixture.  

5. Take your strawberries and gently fold them into the rest of the batter.  

6. Pour batter into greased and floured bundt pan and bake in oven at 325* for 60 minutes.  

The batter is delicious.  I know this because I sampled it.  It is really thick and is spotted with big chunks of strawberries and tiny lemon zest pieces.

And coming out of the oven?  Oh my god, so exciting to see.  You want to invite people over for dinner just so they can watch you take it out, I swear.  Gorgeous.

Let it sit for 20 minutes before taking out of the pan and placing on top of a wire cooling rack.  The rack should be inside a cookie sheet because the next step is messy.

Lemon Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon milk (optional)

Directions:  

1. Add lemon to powdered sugar, 1/2 a tablespoon at a time and whisk.

2. Once you get to your desired consistency, stop!  

Note: I added milk because it was still to stiff and I didn't want to over lemon the glaze but it's up to you how lemony you want it!  I also ended up only using of the glaze, so you can probably cut this recipe in half unless you want your cake doused in lemon.

3. Spoon a thin layer of glaze over the cake.

4. Add the almonds on top the of the cake, they should use the lemond glaze as a glue to adhere to.

5.  Add more glaze on top to trap the almonds in place.    

I  used the whisk to splash it on there.  Again, add as little or as much glaze as you want.  Let is sit for a few minutes, the glaze hardens up fast.  

At this point i was like wow, this didn't come out half bad!  

The strawberries look delicious, the cake is an even color... there are crunch almonds on top and lemon glaze drizzling off the sides...

I mean, in the close up you might not even be sure what it is but you want some right?

Yes friends. I was pleased.  And then.. then I cut a slice, and was greeted by wonderful strawberry chunks.

Chunks in ever single slice.  On the top, on the bottom.. everywhere.

It's probably one of the prettiest things that I have made to date!

You just cant stop looking at the strawberries, huh?  Neither could I.  Well no, that's a lie.  Sorry about that.  Sometimes i lie about how long it takes me to shove this stuff in my mouth.

Needless to say I was destroying a slice of this within minutes.

How was it you may ask?  Awesome.  Tangy but sweet.  Soft but crunchy...  Amazing!  I most definitely will add this to my arsenal.  (For the upcoming war of destroying all other girls and finding myself a hot boy with abs.)

 

xoxo,
Anna 

Strawberry (Cream) Cheese Cake Cupcakes

So the minute I saw this blogger's post for these strawberry cheese cake inspired cuppycakes, i knew i would have to bake them for sure.  (As did half of the internet.)  Because they just looked ridiculously delicious.  So i saved the page and waited for a good time.  Obviously a good time meant the first time i used my handy dandy stand mixer.

They're all over the internet, and i can see why.  So pretty!  Taste wise, i'd bake them again but they aren't my favorites.  I prefer my own strawberry-strawberry cupcakes, but they are still SUPER yummy.  I love strawberries!  So sad to see the season ending though.

I get so excited when im about to start baking and i lay everything out, and then measure out ingredients.  I guess everyone has their secret nerdiness.  At least my nerdiness fills tummies?  I only wish that i had a nifty 1k camera that would magically take awesome pictures for me too.  Maybe one day.

Graham Cracker Crust
(preheat oven to 350)
1.5 packets of graham crackers, crumbled
1.5 sticks of non salted butter

Crush up the graham crackers (rolling pin in a ziplock)!  Add melted butter (minute and half in the microwave) and squish between your (super clean) hands.

Line 2 muffin pans with liners.  I chose red today.  And i say chose because this is what i look at each day i bake.  I love pretty liners  <3

 

One tablespoon of the mixture goes into each cupcake liner.  Smush down.

Put into oven around 4 minutes, or until the grahams start turning brown.  Remove and set aside.


Vanilla Cake with Strawberries
Makes 24, exactly

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1,5 sticks of unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup + 2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
4 large eggs, room temp
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled & coarsely chopped (approx one 16 oz container, minus 6 medium/small strawberries used later for topping).

 In one small bowl, whisk together the baking powder, flour and salt.  Set aside.

In a larger bowl, crack open your eggs and separate the egg whites.  This is what you want.  This is actually the first time i tried doing this.  I was bad. hahaha.  Next time ill just buy egg whites in a carton.  Less messy.

Beat the eggwhites for about 4 minutes.  You will see them go from liquid, to bubbly, to thick foam.  Once they have "glossy peaks" you stop beating.  Im still working on this.  But it's amazing how quickly eggs can change their property!

Next, in a large bowl cream together butter and sugar.  This was when the stand mixer came out!!!  Awesome.  Beat until fluffy.

Add vanilla.  Add 1/2 the flour, then 1/2 the yogurt, then the remaining flour and remaining yogurt.  Beat on low in between these additions.  The mixture looks a little dry, but don't worry that will change.

Stop the mixer and manually fold in the egg whites.  Don't mix, fold in.  Lastly, fold in the 2 cups of strawberries.

 The batter looks gorgeous.  Gorgeous gorgeous!  It looks like some yummy yogurt parfait or something.   Scoop over the graham cracker crust.  (I used one ice cream scoop.)

Throw them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.  Keep an eye on them!  Remove when done.

Stare at them and have a difficult battle with yourself as you tell yourself you cannot shove them in your mouth, they just came out of the oven and they need to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1.5 package (12 oz) cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter at room temp

2.5 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream together butter and cream cheese.  Add vanilla.  Slowly add powdered sugar.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, frost the tops with the cream cheese.

Topping
1/2  a graham cracker, crumbled  (one will be enough for all 24)
6 strawberries, cut into fours

Now take your frosted cupcake...

Add a sprinkle of graham cracker "dust"...

And a strawberry slice to finish it off.

Now give it lots of friends.

As a bonus, these cupcakes are pretty on the outside AND the inside.  They're the Miss America of Cupcakes, i think.  Layers of graham crackers, strawberries and frosting.  Nom.

This one is cut in half to show off that pretty but let's be real.  No one eats just half of one, right?

I brought these to my gym this morning. Haha.  Yes my gym.  My boxing instructor ate 3.5 during my one hour work out.  And got on one knee.  Just saying.  All in all, a job well done my friends.  Made yummy cupcakes and i finally got to break in that new mixer!!!

xoxo,
Anna

P.S. OH, also, while putting groceries away this weekend I found a container of cajeta in the fridge.  I think it was a secret calling that I need to get on those tres leches cupcakes  (or ANY cupcakes) and somehow incorporate cajeta in it as well.  Cajeta is a delicious, thick Mexican caramel.  Gotta use it on something!  Hopefully I can get those out for my mom's birthday before i leave on vacation. Stay tuned!  update// finally made them 4 months later:  Cajeta Tres Leches Cupcakes.

Chocolate Strawberry Filled Cupcakes

I have seriously been waiting for strawberries to come back into season for months. Mostly because i wanted to replicate last year's experience of getting to smell cooking strawberries. Best.smell.ever. And because i am still trying to get a handle on the whole "filling" cupcakes thing.

So i set out to make some (kinda barely) Mardi Gras themed cupcakes for the usual drunken debauchery at the Evan's house.

Used the same chocolate cake recipe as last time, except i used better cocoa powder this time. Yummy Ghirardelli! I could taste the difference. You can find the recipe here.

And I used pretty gold liners. Because there is no such thing as Mardi Gras liners.

The frosting was the same as this frosting (except with the measurements halved!!!) And in case you havent noticed, i really prefer cream cheese frosting. I hate buttercream.

I used the same technique for the strawberry sauce. I cooked one carton, separated the 1/4 cup for the frosting and used the rest for the strawberry filling. I got the recipe from Wilton. But they used frozen strawberries so i had to make up my own recipe using the fresh ones i has just cooked.

So i mixed together:

1/4 cup of strawberry sauce

1 cup of water

2 table spoons of corn starch

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon

And heated them for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. It looks gross. It does. I won't lie. Once it was cooled, i added the rest of the strawberry sauce that was left over from the carton and stirred it in. YES IT LOOKS GROSS. I already said it did. But it tasted good!

I threw in the resulting 2 cups or so into a ziplock and used a piping tip to fill the cupcakes. This time around though, i made 5-6 holes in each one to get as much in as possible. It took too long, and only worked okay. I need a cupcake corer. Bad. It's on my to buy list! (Or on your list of things to buy me...)

I dyed the frosting purple, which means everyone thought they were raspberry. They weren't!

I think the most exciting part about this batch was that i finally got to use the stickers that Katie bought me for Christmas. Instead of a cupcake carrier i might have gone out and bought an actual box. =x haha. (I kinda want to buy some pink boxes to have on hand, actually...) I don't think anyone noticed it on the box once it was opened, but i did. I knew it was there!

I will admit though, i have gotten reallllllllllly lazy with the decorating in the last year. Mainly because i've been too busy concentrating on baking from scratch that the aesthetics have become secondary. Maybe once i have a handle on the standard flavors, i'll get back into it. But for now i will be lame and go back to my standard cop out of using chocolate on top of everything.

xo,

Anna

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

So i tried baking from scratch on for size. And i'd like to say it was a great success. A roaring success. In fact, im pretty sure when im ready to make the commitment, ill use them as bait to catch a tall, tanned and handsome husband. I'd add my usual "with abs" at the end of that sentence, but we know that said imaginary husband won't have any if he's shoving his face with cuppycakes.

I digress. Back to my Catch A Husband Cupcakes. I think from now on, any recipe i find online im just going to eliminate 1/2 of the powdered sugar and go from there. Cuz i couldnt imagine ruining the cream cheesey-ness of these with more sugar. I actually ended up making two batches. (Cuz i had a LOT of left over frosting.) The first were a lot better than the second and it's because i processed the strawberries differently. It completely made the cupcakes and i will only ever do it this way. Seriously. I mean yeah, i might have burnt my mom's sauce pan a little -- but did i mention i got four proposals? Worth it.

The following is my altered version of the recipe that i used - that i originally found here, after stalking the Internets for 2 weeks for the perfect one.

Strawberry Cupcakes
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 and 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking power
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup "strawberry sauce"
1/2 cup milk

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
16 ounces cream cheese
1 stick of butter
3.5 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup of "strawberry sauce"
Pink Food Coloring Gel
*note this made wayyyyyy too much frosting. lol. So you might want to change it a little to make less.

Strawberry Sauce (to be used for both cupcakes and frosting)
1 and 1/2 cartons of fresh strawberries
3 teaspoons of sugar


It's the strawberry sauce that really made them. In comparison to the ones i made the next day, where i simply blended the strawberries and added some sugar to them, these were like 100 times better.

To make the Strawberry sauce, you just take the stems off the berries and cut them in half. Put two teaspoons of sugar on top of them in a bowl and let them sit there for about 15 minutes. Then you put them in a small saucepan with a lid on medium heat. STIR OFTEN OR YOU WILL BURN THEM. Don't tell my mother. =x

Everytime i opened them to stir them it was like magic in my nostrils. The smell was simply intoxicating. They get all mushy and mixed with the sugar... it's crazy.
In abuot 10-15 minutes, when theyre all saucey and you want to shove your face in them, take them out and finish pureeing them to your preferred consistency. Add more sugar if needed. I just added one teaspoon, but it probably didn't even need that. Yeah it looks kinda gross...

Let cool before using (like all the other ingredients, it should be at room temperature. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in one bowl. In the other, beat the butter until its fluffy and then add the sugar. Add one egg at a time, beating for 30 seconds in between each one. Mix the strawberry sauce with the milk in a cup. Add one fourth of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/eggs. Then add 1/3 of the milk/strawberry sauce. Alternate adding the flour and sauce, ending with the flour. I will admit it. I tasted the cake batter. =x And it was good. It looked like a milk shake. It was gorgeous. (And i got to use my new mixer!)


And they cooked so pretty too! I love seeing cupcakes in their pans. All naked, ready for their frosting.
These were for a friend who shares an affinity for all things animal print. So of course, she got the zebra liners. Was there ever any doubt?


The frosting. Oh that frosting. Cream cheese. I once had a friend tell me that he thinks i would probably eat a whole brick of cream cheese on a stick. And you know what, if society didn't frown on that i totally would. Don't judge.

Beat the butter and the cream cheese together on medium speed until it is nice and creamy. Add half of the sugar. Add as much strawberry sauce as you'd like. Add the remaining sugar. Add food coloring (gel gel gel! none of that watery crap). I stuck it in the fridge for a while to get a little harder b/c i was using a piping bag. Piped it on with a 1M tip and ziplock, and then ate one before anyone saw me.

It made 28 cupcakes. And i had enough frosting to frost another 14 the next day. Oops. So yeah, you can seriosuly cut down on the frosting measurements haha. You can just do half, especially if you will use it to spread on the cupcakes instead of using it for piping. (Plus you can always garnish with real strawberries.)

Once i was done with them all, i put them in my trusty cupcake carrier and ran off to present the birthday girl with her pink zebra cupcakes.

And all 24 were eaten by the end of the night! Cuz there's nothing sadder than taking home rejected cupcakes, you know.


Next, i have my eyes set on choco-penut butter and on pineapple-mango... 'till then!

xoxo,
Anna