Attack of the Franken-Apple-Muffins!

What started as a simple quest to use my extra, about-to-be-too-ripe, apples, ended with an abundance of tasty baked goods and an interesting recipe for Apple-streudal type muffins. Originally starting with Cook’s Illustrated Apple Crumble recipe, I quickly discovered I had too many apples and not enough ‘crumble-type dishware’, so I found that combining the extra crumble ingredients with Mark Ruhlman’s Basic Quick Bread ratio yielded not only a quick fix but a moist, light, and delicious muffin. I expect that you could swap in a different types of fruit, with relevant seasonings, to get your preferred franken-muffin experience.

Here's the franken-muffins, pre-pan dissection. See more details after the jump.

Valentines Day Chocolates

I was recently tasked with making Chocolates for my former-roommates girlfriend. (In case she reads this... He got the materials, and helped with most of the pieces!)

This explains why this post is being released AFTER Valentines Day.

Only brief 1930's recipe style instructions on this one folks, but first I'll give a menu/list to make you all jealous.

• Muddy Bears (Chocolate Covered Gummy Bears)
• Raisin Clusters
• Marshmallow Dipped Chocolates
• Hazelnut Truffles
• Coconut Bourbon Truffles
• Blackberry Truffles
• Fudge... Dipped in Fudge

The fun part of doing the huge varitey of chocolates was scaling down recipes to fit. Most make 24-36 chocolates... I made 4 of each.

Basic Instructions after the Jump