Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes

This weekend we celebrated my husband's 30th birthday!  He has had a hard time with this idea of getting older, but I for one, think he is just getting better with age!  Let me take a minute to tell you about this husband I have.  He is pretty awesome.  He is one of the hardest workers I know, he is an amazing father and he. is. funny.  He has done so many things for our family in the nearly 9 years that we have been married, including but not limited to...giving me 2 perfect babies, working so hard in school and work that I can be a stay-at-home mom, buying and fixing up multiple houses, and making me laugh a whole lot.  But, one of the best things he has ever done for me personally, was win me a Kitchen Aid Mixer.  That was pretty dang awesome of him.  

Everyone raise your virtual hand if you read Our Best Bites!  If you have your hand down, I'm telling you right now that you should!  They not only share amazing recipes, but are laugh-out-loud funny!  I strongly recommend.  Anyhow, for those that don't know, about 6 months ago their second cook book was released.  To celebrate, they hosted a contest where you were to photograph yourself with a picture of the new book and send it in to them to be judged.  The best, most creative pictures would then be selected to receive prizes.  I told Jason about it, but also included that I had no ideas to make myself stand out.  He, however, has never backed down from a challenge, and viewed this as such.  So he came up with this...

And we won!!  Thanks to his creative mind and shameless desire to make people laugh, I now own a shiny red Kitchen Aid mixer (and there is this lovely picture floating out there in blog land for all the world to see)!  See, he really is the best!!  So happy birthday to him!

Okay, so I was getting to the recipe.  These Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes are one of our very favorite recipes out of that Our Best Bites Cookbook.  They are amazingly simply and incredibly delicious.  Last time I made these, I had to whip up a second batch immediately because we devoured them so quickly! Then those disappeared just as fast.  Jason loves them so much that he requested them for his birthday breakfast yesterday and we almost needed a third batch!  

Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

1/8 teaspoon salt

2-3 Tablespoons butter, melted

Powdered sugar

Whipped cream, optional

Place a nonstick mini muffin pan in the oven and heat to 400 degrees.  Meanwhile, place the flour, milk, eggs and salt in a blender and blend until mixture is smooth.  Remove the pan from the oven, doing so very carefully and with an oven mit, as the pan with be very hot.  Quickly spray the wells with nonstick spray.  Fill the muffin wells 3/4 full with batter.

Bake for 12-18 minutes, until batter is puffed and slightly golden on top.  Remove the puffs and place on a plate or platter.  Drizzle with melted butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Drizzle with maple syrup or strawberry sauce and whipped cream, or eat them alone with your fingers!  All ways are equally delicious!

Strawberry Sauce

3 cups frozen strawberries

2 Tablespoon sugar

Place strawberries and sugar in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the strawberries release their juices, about 5 minutes.  Cook for 1-2 minutes longer, stirring continuously and smashing berries slightly with a fork.  Serve over pancake puffs.

Recipe Source:  Pancake Puffs from Our Best Bites.  Strawberry Sauce from The Unsophisticated Kitchen

I like to party here!

Coffee Cake Muffins

It is very unlike me to post two sweet treats right in a row.  However, these muffins were just so amazingly delicious, that I thought it would be quite unfair of me not to share them with you as soon as possible!  Coffee cake is one of my most favorite things in the whole world!  Anything topped with streusel is a-ok with me!  So when I found the recipe for these muffins that not only had a an amazingly delicious pecan streusel topping, but also had a ribbon of streusel tucked inside, I knew I had to make them immediately.  After my husband ate one of these this afternoon, he declared them the best muffin I have ever made!  I won't divulge to you how many of these things I ate because I would be embarrassed, but I am telling you that you should make them right away.  They were so so good.

Coffee Cake Muffins

Makes 12 muffins (I actually only got about 9 but I made mine pretty big)

Streusel topping:

3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

3 tablespoons chopped walnuts or pecans

Muffins:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease twelve muffin cups or line with paper baking cups and set aside.  For topping, in a small bowl stir together the 3 tablespoons flour, brown sugar and the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.  Cut in the 2 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir in the nuts, set topping aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the 1-1/2 cups flour, granulate sugar, baking powder, the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ginger, baking soda and salt.  Cut in the 1/4 cup butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  

In another bowl, combine egg and buttermilk.  Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture.  Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy and pretty sticky).

Spoon half of the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each one-third full.  Top with half of the streusel topping, then the remaining batter and the remaining topping.  Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden and a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in muffin cups on wire rack for 5 minutes.  Remove from muffin cups, serve warm.

Recipe Source:  Better Homes and Gardens

I'm linking this recipe up here!

Buttermilk Banana Bread {The Best Recipe}

Several months ago I took dinner over to to a friend's family after she had a baby.  I had some bananas and buttermilk that really needed to be used up, and I had remembered seeing the recipe on my favorite food blog before.  So I threw a loaf together and packed it up and sent it to her.  It was a risky move, as I had never used this recipe before, and I thought it might be a tad on the tacky side to send a loaf with some nibbles taken out of it.  Several days later, this friend told me that in 15 years, she had never let a bit of banana touch her lips, but that she had eaten nearly the entire loaf by herself, and would only allow her husband small bites every now and then.  I was over joyed that I hadn't sent her a disgusting dessert!  So today when I had some bananas that were nearing the end of their days, I instantly thought of this recipe.  Let me tell you friends, if there is one banana bread recipe that you need for the rest of your days, it is this one!  It is utterly moist and flavorful and perfect.  I could easily have consumed one of those loaves all by myself!
Did you notice the half eaten loaf in the back?  My little 5 year old came in from school and really wanted some.  I told him he had to wait a few minutes so that I could take some pictures, but he was not handling the banana bread photo session very well.  In fact, his exact words were "Mom, everyone already knows how to make banana bread!  I don't care about your photography!"  So I gave in and cut him a bit.  Then the boy who wants to eat nothing more than Kit-Kat bars and spaghetti, inhaled 2 whole slices...not a crumb left on his plate!  That is a true testament of how great this stuff is!

Buttermilk Banana Bread

1/2 cup of butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of mashed bananas (I didn't measure my bananas out, but just used 3 medium ones)
4 Tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Grease and flour 1 large loaf pan.  I used 2 smaller pans and they worked great.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together.  Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla until the batter is well mixed.  Add in the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.  Mix until well combined. Divide batter into greased pan(s) and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Recipe Source:  Mel's Kitchen Cafe