Banana Bacon Peanut Butter Chip Muffins #MuffinMonday

The Elvis sandwich in muffin form, these banana, bacon Peanut Butter Chip muffins will delight anyone who loves their sweets with just a little hint of salt and smoke. These are so good!

Today for the first time, I am joining a group of bloggers who make muffins every week for a celebration called Muffin Monday!  We get a specific muffin recipe, in this case, an easy to follow banana espresso chocolate chip one from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking and we are allowed to adapt it to our preferences.  At least, that’s the way I understand the rules so I hope I got it right.  I would hate to be booted out just as soon as I’ve gotten in.

I am not a big fan of coffee flavored things, except ice cream (well, and actual coffee – can’t live without that) and the chocolate banana combo didn’t do anything for me either, so I thought, what can I substitute for these two flavors, while still keeping the essential banana-ness of the muffin?

So bacon is the new espresso and peanut butter chips replace the chocolate ones. Truth be told, the bacon flavor is subtle, just four pieces in 12 muffins, but it adds a smoky, salty, sweet depth to the traditional banana-peanut butter sandwich combination.

Banana Bacon Peanut Butter Chip Muffins

If you are thinking the combination is odd, I offer you the review of my 66-year-old, relatively unadventurous-eater uncle, after eating a muffin without being told the ingredients: “That was really good!” Couldn’t have said it better myself.  To his credit (and as further proof of deliciousness) he continued to eat them with gusto despite being taken aback when I told him about the bacon. Adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Ingredients 4 very ripe medium-sized bananas 1/2 cup or 115g sugar
1/4 cup (firmly packed) or 50g light brown sugar (I used dark brown for a deeper flavor.)
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup or 120ml whole milk
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups or 187g all-purpose flour
4 slices of streaky bacon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 ounces or 170g peanut butter chips

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C. Spray your 12-hole muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or line with muffin liners. Mix together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk, and egg with your beaters.  Set aside.

Meanwhile, fry your bacon strips until very crispy.  Drain on paper towels and then chop them finely with a sharp knife.

In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and three-quarters of the bacon.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir just until combined.

Fold in the peanut butter chips.

Distribute the batter between the 12 cups.

Sprinkle the remaining bacon bits on the top of each.

Bake in the center of the oven for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.

Enjoy! 

Sunny Scottish Strawberry Cake

When strawberries have been in the refrigerator a while and are "past their best," I always make this strawberry cake with ground almonds. It's beautiful with a glaze or just a sprinkling of powdered sugar. 

Every summer that I am able, since the year 2000, I have visited my friend, Jacky, in Aberdeen, Scotland.  I’ve missed the occasional year and, sadly, this is my second year in a row to miss this time.  Which makes me very sad.  Despite its usually gloomy weather, even in Summer, Aberdeen is one of my favorite places because Jacky is one of those upbeat people who radiate sunshine.   We met in 1996 when we were both living in the little oilfield town Macaé, Brazil and she confessed years later that I scared her initially and she thought to herself that she could never be friends with me.  I can be a bit overwhelming at first, it’s true, but I guess I didn’t turn out to be so frightening after all.  We’ve been fast friends ever since.

Way back in the Summer of 2005, I was sitting around in Jacky’s lovely warm kitchen, reading the daily newspaper, the Aberdeen Press and Journal, or the P&J as we (almost locals) like to call it, and found this recipe.  Scottish strawberries are some of the best in the world (my other Scottish friend, Gillian, says they are THE VERY BEST and I have learned not to argue with Gillian, who can also be a little scary at first.) during their short season so we had been buying them and eating them in a frankly prodigious manner.  This recipe for strawberry cake was supposedly the answer to what to do if you have some strawberries that haven’t been eaten but were getting “past their best.”   Of course, we had to go out and buy some more to bake this cake! 

Since then, I have made it with various berries in different stages of ripeness (read: over ripeness) always with great success.  The buttery crumb of the cake, heightened by the natural richness of the almond meal is superbly and perfectly complemented by a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of cold milk.  And, if you are using berries that are slightly past their best, you can feel virtuous for not wasting them. Win-win. 

Ingredients

3 tablespoons plain flour (for coating baking pan)

6.35 oz or 180g ground almonds

3/4 cup or 180g soft unsalted butter

3/4 cup or 180g caster sugar

1 1/2 cups or 180g self-raising flour (or the same amount of plain flour plus a scant 2 teaspoons of baking powder and a good pinch of salt)

2 medium eggs

2 tablespoons milk

14 oz or 400g strawberries, plus a few for decoration, if you like.

(Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries or a combination can be substituted for the strawberries.)

To serve: Icing or powdered sugar

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Spray your baking pan of choice with non-stick spray or butter it well.  Tip in the plain flour and turn the pan all around, shaking carefully to make sure that it is well-coated with flour.  This is not as important in a regular, flat baking pan where just buttering would probably work as well, but in a Bundt pan, this is essential to get the cake to come out nicely, without leaving bits stuck to the pan.

Hull your strawberries with a sharp knife by cutting into the berry just under the green hull.  Press your thumb on the knife and the hull and pull the hull out of the strawberry.  This leaves more strawberry behind to eat that cutting the whole top off would do.  

Rinse the strawberries well and let them drain. Cut the berries into smaller pieces.   Set aside.

Place all the ingredients except the strawberries in a mixer and mix to combine.

Carefully stir the cut strawberries through the batter. 

Spoon the batter into the pan, leveling off the top.  

Place the tin in the middle of the oven for an hour, checking after 40 minutes and covering with tin foil if it is getting too brown.

Remove from the oven, cool slightly then loosen the edges with a knife and turn out onto a serving plate.  

Serve warm or cold, decorated with extra strawberries, if desired, or sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.

Enjoy!

Sheila’s Mexican Cornbread Muffins #MuffinMonday

Sheila's Mexican Cornbread Muffins are baked up with cheesy cornbread batter flecked with red and green jalapeños, baked in muffin cups made of bacon. Yes, bacon!

I have always been free and easy about sharing recipes.  Perhaps it was my upbringing but good food is meant to be shared, right?  By the same token, I am not shy about asking you to share yours.  I met someone years ago (in a ladies' Bible study group no less!) who refused to share recipes.  I can’t even remember what she had made that I expressed an interest in knowing how to make, but she flat out said, “I don’t share my recipes.”  I was sure she was kidding and tried to make a joke.  She was dead serious.  I was flabbergasted.  Seriously?  I had never met anyone who refused to share before (or since.)

Fortunately, my friend Sheila was also raised in the Southern Louisiana tradition and, when I asked her to share the recipe for her succulent, cheesy spicy cornbread, she sent me an email right away.  She is the best kind of friend because she never hesitates to share other information as well.  She was the one who first took me around Cairo and showed me the important things like where to get Fritos and Karo, where the Community Services Association is and she gave me the name of a good vet who makes house calls.  Look in the dictionary under Helpful, Knowledgeable Expat and you will see a photo of Sheila.  Because she is among the very best of our ilk. 

Ingredients

1 cup or 6 oz or 170g yellow cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 226g sour cream

1 1/4 cups or 12 oz or 275g creamed corn

2 eggs

1/2 cup canola oil

1 medium onion

2-4 jalapeño peppers or chili peppers (Sheila said: I like red and green.  I agree!)

12 oz or 340g extra sharp cheddar

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.   Grease a 9in X 13in or 33cm X 23cm cake pan or line a 12-cup muffin tin with awesomely delicious bacon cups.  Or muffin liners.  But I promise bacon cups are worth the trouble.  They are not only pretty but add such flavor to the cornbread.  Your mouth will be doing a happy dance with the cornbread alone.  The bacon cups add a pirouette to every bite.

Chop your onion pretty finely.  My father-in-law won’t eat onions if he can see them so I was careful with this step. 

Dice your chosen peppers and add as much as you like, depending on their hotness and your potential eaters.  Peppers vary greatly in heat and so it’s worthwhile to give yours a taste to judge how spicy they are before you add them.  If greater heat is desired, also leave in the membranes and seeds.

Mix all of the ingredients.

Pour or spoon the batter into your prepared pan.  As you can see, I chose the bacon cups!

For the cake pan, bake for about 45-55 minutes - or 25-30 minutes for muffins - or until golden brown.  If you are using bacon cups, coax them out gently with a spoon while still warm.  In any case, allow them both to cool before cutting.

Enjoy!

Divine cheesy spicy deliciousness.  And also bacon.