Getting My Bake On at the Library!

.. with Banana Coffee Cake Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Streusel Muffins!

Did you see her? She was here. One of my new blog idols, Mary the Food Librarian was here! I let her know I made her blood orange cardamom cake and she came over to take a look and left a lovely comment. [gush]Thanks Mary! [/gush] When I first discovered her online she was challenging herself to make 30 bundt cakes in 30 days. I knew she was someone to watch as she entitled her challenge “I Like Big Bundts: 30 Bundt Cakes in 30 Days.” Of course, I started following her blog immediately. Now in my Google Reader there is something sweet and caloric waiting to inspire and tempt me nearly every day.

Given that I am nearly always trying to lose “these last 10 pounds” my obsession with becoming a better baker (and following Mary’s blog ) is particularly odd I suppose. I get in this mood to bake but truthfully, I never actually eat the goodies. Well, sometimes just a taste but I usually just take them to work, leave them in the lunchroom and they are gone in just a few minutes as word spreads around the office.

Tonight all the stars were in line for baking. I got home and realized that tomorrow is “cleaning lady day” which is always a good time to mess up the kitchen. My dear husband was at a class and 3 ripe bananas were sitting on the counter. “Time to bake those muffins!” I’ll have to wait until the reviews come in tomorrow morning to know how they turned out. I’m guessing I should have swirled the streusel a bit into the muffin instead of letting it rest on top as you would with a blueberry muffin. The sugar didn’t get too “melty” or crispy and some of the chips still wanted to fall off the tops so I put them some parchment tulips so they wouldn’t make a mess. I think it would have been fun to use a cooking torch on the sugar topping to melt it a bit too. Oh well. Too tired to do it now. I’m betting these paper tulips will help with the ‘curb appeal’ in the lunchroom as well. Next time (if there is one) I will put a bit of butter in the streuesel mixture or swirl it in. The recipe is here on Mary’s blog. She didn’t recall how long she baked the muffins but these ended up baking for 21 minutes which might have been a minute or two too much. Hopefully an eater will comment below the post to let us know.

I’ve set my blogger post to go off at 9AM when these will be debuted in the kitchen at work. Lets see how many of my workmates follow the blog and go running to try one!

Again, the recipe is here at The Food Librarian. The only modification I made was to use heavy cream instead of buttermilk. Nobody seemed to complain.

Added Note: True to form I did not eat one of these. I asked everyone to be brutally honest but everyone lied and said they were great. I was particularly interested in the dryness factor since I was unsure but everyone said they were moist. So 21 minutes it is.