cold day comforts

Welcome to winter. I'm writing this post while cuddled under a blanket with the dog trying to keep warm. Our heat is temporarily out of service so it's only 59 degrees in our house. Also, it's snowing outside. Sigh. I guess I wasn't kidding when I said I'd be turning on the oven to keep us warm... Speaking of baking (and warm delightful things), I recently made a batch of my infamous banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. I used mostly silicone bake ware this time and was very happy with the results.

So was my BFF Kristy, who received a tin of cupcakes as a belated housewarming gift. Along with some wine to wash them down with of course.

Here she is ready to devour the first one. It's heart-shaped. Xoxo.

I made a cake with the leftover batter that wouldn't fit in my muffin tins. To be truthful, I had plenty of muffin tins, but not enough oven room. Happiness note to self: my dream kitchen has a minimum of three ovens. Anyways, according to all of my taste tester co-workers, a few days in the fridge makes this baked treat even better. Duly noted.

Two weekends ago I made pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips. I used a recipe from one of my school pastry books and ended up with quite a large bowl of batter. This is how it all started.

The recipe called for honey and molasses, along with a large amount of sugar and butter. But remember, there was a vegetable involved, so let's just call things even on the health chart.

Next time I would use more chocolate chips, but it was a successful first try for this recipe. And second try actually. I saved some of the batter to bake off more muffins later in the week. The second round of muffins tasted even better than the first batch. Below is an example of how to make these muffins (or anything really) even more delicious.

Add a side of ice cream and chocolate sauce. Preferably homemade ice cream, but I am not the proud owner of an ice cream maker just yet, so this vanilla bean ice cream is store bought. Perhaps I can add home made ice cream to my plates in 2012? Only Santa Claus knows the answer to that question. And I plan on leaving him a plate of cookies next month to make his belly even jollier. Just in case he doesn't read my blog.