Orange Nutella Swirl Muffins

Happy World Nutella Day, everyone!

Don't know what World Nutella Day is? It's a day set aside for the celebration of Nutella!

In honor of this grand celebration of chocolatey hazelnut spread, I made some muffins. But they needed more than just Nutella. The great thing about Nutella is it's influence on other flavors. It make them sing! And one of my favorite flavor combinations, particularly for morning foods, like these muffins, is chocolate and orange. So I made Orange Nutella Swirl Muffins. And they are delicious.

 

These muffins are extra great because of how easy they are to make. I've got a lot going on this month, so I didn't have time to slave away over some nutella treat. These muffins start with Bisquick, which means you have no excuse for not making them. In other words, go make them! You won't be sorry.


Orange Nutella Swirl Muffins
1/2 C Orange juice
Zest of one orange (about 2 tsp)
1/4 C Milk
2 Tbsp Vegetable oil
1 Egg
2 C Bisquick mix
1/3 C Sugar
1/4 C Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 400f.
2. In a large bowl, combine orange juice, zest, milk, oil and egg. Mix well.
3. Stir in sugar and Bisquick mix, just until combined. Do not over mix.
4. Prepare muffin cups by placing a cupcake liner in each cup, then spray with cooking spray. (Yes, both. Muffins have a tendency to stick much more than cupcakes)
5. Spoon batter into muffin cups, dividing evenly between 12 cups.
6. Place nutella in a ziplock bag. Snip off one end, and swirl on top of muffin batter. Drag a toothpick through the nutella to create a swirl.
7. Bake in preheated oven 13-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Apple Coconut Banana Bread

I don't normally love coconut. Other than Magic Cookie Bars, I prefer my coconut on someone else's food. But this... This is some GOOD banana bread.

I was inspired by Our Best Bite's Lime Coconut Banana Bread. I used my favorite banana bread recipe, from my Betty Crocker Cookbook. I happened to have some cut up apple that needed used up, but thought it needed a little something extra. That's where the coconut comes in!

 

Recipe:
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
1/4 C butter
1/2 tbsp. apple pie spice
1/2 cup coconut, plus 2 tbsp for topping

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar, whisked together with 1 tbsp apple syrup and 1 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 8½ x4½ loaf pans, or 1 9x5 loaf pan.

In a medium sauce pan, melt 1/4 C butter over medium heat. Once melted, add apple chunks and apple pie spice. Saute for 5-7 minutes over medium heat, until apples are just tender. Set aside to cool while preparing banana bread batter.

Combine sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Fold in apple and ½ cup coconut. Pour into pans. Sprinkle remaining 2 tbsp coconut over top of batter.

Check after 40 minutes, covering with foil is coconut is getting browned. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Drizzle tops of loaves with prepared glaze. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing.

Chocolate Caramel Apple Slices

One of my personal favorite ways to eat an apple is in the form of caramel apples. Something about the sweet, sticky caramel combined with the juicy tartness of the apple makes for a perfect combination.

To make the apples easier to eat, I dipped individual slices rather than dipping the entire apple at once. If you frequent Pinterest at all, I am sure you’ve seen something similar to this. Some people, myself included, have had difficulty making these, because the caramel does not stick too well to the pre-cut apples. To overcome this I dipped the apple slices in chocolate first (which sticks without any problems), then drizzled caramel over the top. I made two different versions, but don’t feel limited by what I made.

The first, and my personal favorite, is similar to a turtle. For these, I dipped each apple slice in melted chocolate, allowed the chocolate to set, then drizzled some caramel over the top and sprinkled with chopped pecans.

The second kind is a chocolate peanut butter combination. To make these, I melted some chocolate candy melts, stirred in a spoonful of peanut butter, and dipped. The proportions are really up to you; start with a single spoonful of peanut butter, and add from there if you want a more distinct peanut butter taste. For decoration I also drizzled some melted peanut butter over the top. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of these, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say they were beautiful and delicious.

The possibilities of flavor combinations really are endless, limited only by your own imagination.

Mini Peach Cobbler

Like most people, I have many favorite desserts. Topping the list are cheesecake, crème brulée, and magic cookie bars. However, since autumn is approaching, my mind is on pies, cinnamon, and fruit, so I made peach cobbler!

I wanted to make it mini, but couldn’t find any winning recipes out there for a mini cobbler. This version is adapted from my normal peach cobbler, with just a few adjustments to make it cupcake-sized.

There were many options for making peach cobbler in mini form. The easiest is probably to simply put some peaches in a cupcake pan and cover with normal cobbler batter. That would work, but I wanted to be able to pick mine up to eat it. To achieve that, I decided to make a sort of crust out of the cobbler first, pre-bake it so it wouldn’t get soggy, and then add peaches and a bit more cobbler on top for looks. It turned out perfect!

Do you want to know what I did? Of course you do!

First, mix white cake mix with butter until you reach the consistency shown below. Spoon that mixture into a lined cupcake pan, pressing down with a cup to get an even layer. Save a bit of the mixture for the topping.

Pop the crusts in the oven and bake for about 5-10 minutes, depending on how you prefer your cobbler. The longer you leave it in, the easier they will be to hold while eating; I like mine fairly soft, so 5 minutes was perfect.

Next, add peaches. Use fresh if you have them; if there aren’t any on sale, you can use canned (which is what I had to do). Add some cinnamon to get that autumn flavor.

Add a few drops of the cake and butter mixture on top of the peaches, then bake at 350 for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool (if you can resist the delicious smell coming your way) for 5 minutes.

You should go make these now.