Pumpkin Maple Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Muffins with Maple Pumpkin Glaze

Pumpkin maple oatmeal cinnamon chip muffins with maple pumpkin glaze..... How's that for a mouthful? Sorry for the long title of this recipe, but it's the best I could do. ;-) It's descriptive, at least! After reading that you have a good idea of what to expect, right?!

The following recipe is an original Barbershop creation! I created this muffin recipe to submit to a King Arthur Flour contest, the Sweet Victory Bakeoff. The two main requirements for this contest were that the recipe contained King Arthur Flour and pure maple syrup. Entries could be submitted in the categories of breakfast, dessert, or savory (main dish). As you can guess, I opted for the breakfast category! To create this recipe, I did do some research by studying some other muffin recipes... However, the actual combination of ingredients and measurements was completely my own. :) Would you like to know more about it? Thought so! Here ya go...

Ingredients

Muffins:

-1 cup King Arthur whole wheat flour

-1 cup King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour 

-3/4 cup rolled (regular) oats

-2 teaspoons baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-1/4 cup light brown sugar

-2/3 cup pure maple syrup

-3/4 cup canned pumpkin

-3/4 vanilla flavored yogurt

-1 large egg, at room temperature

-1/4 cup vegetable oil

-3/4 cup cinnamon baking chips

Glaze:

-1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted

-2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

-3 teaspoons canned pumpkin

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare your standard muffin pan(s) by greasing approximately 20 muffin cups or lining with muffin paper liners.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the first seven ingredients (wheat flour, all-purpose flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon); set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin, yogurt, egg, and vegetable oil until well combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix by hand until everything is incorporated, but be careful not to over-mix. Stir in the cinnamon chips. Scoop the batter into your prepared muffin pan(s), filling each muffin cup approximately 2/3 full.

Bake for approximately 14 to 16 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the middle of a muffin springs back when touched (cooking times may vary per oven). Let muffins rest in pan for 5 minutes before removing from the pan to let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

To prepare the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar, maple syrup, and pumpkin until the mixture is smooth without any lumps. Use a spoon to drizzle the glaze on top of the muffins.

Allow muffins to sit and cool completely (at least 2 to 3 hours) before storing in an airtight container, and use a container that is large enough so that the muffins have room to “breathe.” This will prevent the muffins from becoming soggy.

Yield: Approximately 18 to 20 muffins

Above is exactly what I submitted for the contest. It seems so formal for the blog though. :-P Now I'll share my usual array of pictures....

A few thoughts for you...

Although I've listed the two flours (wheat and all-purpose) as being King Arthur brand, they certainly don't need to be! That was obviously for the purposes of the contest. Also, any brand of vanilla flavored yogurt should be a-okay.

What I love about this recipe is...well, a few things. :)  1) It is very simple!! There's no need for a mixer; everything can be done by hand. I will note that there are several ingredients involved. However, none of them are odd or hard to work with or anything, so don't let that list of ingredients intimidate you.  2) The flavor combination of pumpkin, maple, and cinnamon is just plain delicious! I think maple and cinnamon especially pair well in breakfast items, and that was part of the reason I chose to add both ground cinnamon and cinnamon chips. That being said though, the maple flavor is very subtle in this recipe. It doesn't necessarily stand out. In fact, if you want to feed these to anyone who doesn't care for maple, I am pretty sure they will still really enjoy these muffins!  3) These muffins are moist, fluffy, and hearty all at the same time. I personally like muffins with those qualities and hope you do too.  4) I like these because they were fun to create on my own! Regardless of whether I do well in the contest or not, it was a really unique baking experience for me to not follow a recipe from another source. You should try it sometime yourself!! ;-)

Close-up of the maple pumpkin glaze....yummm. This is good stuff.

A shot of the inside - moist and fluffy!!

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't post a picture of the ingredient that inspired this recipe even though it wasn't necessarily prominent in the final flavor of the muffins...pure maple syrup! And of course, I used the BEST stuff from New York. ;-)

Oh, and I did make this recipe a few times to get it just right...  One time I made a few muffin tops instead of muffins! I used the new, fun muffin top pan that my sister gave me. :) Thanks, sista!

Will let you know if I do well in the King Arthur Flour contest! Keep your fingers crossed for me, please. :)

PS - Check out this recipe over at Lisa's Sweets for a Saturday where TONS of other delicious treats can be found too! ;-)

Best Brownies!

Happy Valentine's Day to all you blog readers out there!! Hope you're all enjoying the day and able to spend it with family and friends whom you love! :) I promise that I won't chat too long during this post. I'll get right to the point!

And the point is? To share a delicious homemade brownie recipe with you! Over the last few years, the recipe I'm about to share with you has become my go-to "from scratch" brownie recipe...and by from scratch, I simply mean not from a boxed brownie mix! This recipe uses ingredients that I always have on hand, so I can whip up a batch of these brownies on a moment's notice. And that's very important, wouldn't you agree?!

The recipe can be found here, on Nestle Toll House's Very Best Baking site, a wonderful site with many delicious recipes! These "Easy Double Chocolate Chip Brownies," as Nestle calls them, couldn't be simpler. The recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate chips, butter or margarine, eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, and baking soda. That is all!! The recipe gets 5 stars on the Nestle website too. There is a reason, folks! These are some darn good brownies. I love this recipe so much that I've used it for other items I've made like my Peppermint Candy Cane Brownies, Grasshopper Brownies, and Creme de Menthe Bars. This is a basic brownie recipe you'll want to keep, I promise.

Now, onto the steps involved and some pictures too!

First of all, you melt the chocolate chips and butter (or margarine) on the stove...

Once that's fully melted, it comes off the heat and you add the remaining ingredients, beginning with the eggs.

Finally, once that mixture is well-incorporated, you add in some more chocolate chips as well as nuts (if you'd like). I've never actually added nuts to this recipe; although some people might call me a nut ;-), I'm not a huge fan of nuts in brownies. The recipe calls for adding in an additional cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of nuts. What I love about this recipe is that at this stage, you can be creative with your add-ins! If you want to keep the recipe more traditional, you can add regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. Orrrrr, you can add just about anything else you'd like! You can add baking chips of different flavors like peanut butter, butterscotch, white chocolate, milk or dark chocolate, Andes mint chips, etc. You could add toffee bits or chopped candy bars (Snickers or Kit Kats or whatever!). The possibilities are endless...really they are. ;-)

For this particular time I made these brownies, I was actually in the mood to add white chocolate for a change! I added about 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips and 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

The mixture is then evenly poured into a greased 13 x 9 pan and popped into the oven.

Voila! You've got yourself a delicious pan of homemade brownies. ;-)

Now, since it's Valentine's Day, I decided not to cut your traditional, square-shaped brownies. So what did I do instead? I made heart-shaped brownies using a cookie cutter! So fun and so easy. It's a great way to make your dessert a tad more festive!

Note: I removed the brownies from the pan (they came out really easily!) before cutting them with the cookie cutter. I lucked out when I flipped the 13 x 9 pan because the whole pan of brownies came out without breaking at all! If I had been thinking better ahead of time though, I think I would have lined the pan with foil before pouring in the batter so that I could have easily just lifted the brownies out. Oh well - next time! By the way, using a non-square cookie cutter like this made for brownie "scraps" since the heart shape obviously wasn't even! The scraps are yummy when you need just a small taste of chocolate...and I'm thinking they'd also be yummy on top of a bowl of ice cream. Definitely not throwing those guys out!

Isn't that a fun heart plate? My mom recently gave me a number of festive plates for various holidays so that I can have fun plates for your viewing pleasure on the blog. :) Thanks, Mom!!

I made one big brownie that Mike and I will share for Valentine's dessert tonight!

After the brownie "photo shoot," I decided to use the plate as a candy dish. :)

Enjoy the rest of the holiday, friends!

 ♥ With love from the Barbershop ♥

Colleen 

Be Creative with Homemade Pizza!

Happy weekend, blog world friends! I'm enjoying a nice relaxing Saturday morning...just had some tasty homemade oatmeal and a cup of coffee, and after I finish this blog post, I hope to look through some cookbooks for a recipe to make later on today. It's nice to have a weekend here in Boston and not off traveling! I have a lot on my to-do list I'd like to accomplish. :-D

Enough ramblings, I know... Onto more important topics like pizza! I LOVE making homemade pizza. I probably make it about once or twice a month but now that I'm thinking about it, I really should do it even more often than that! It's such a fun and easy meal that's sure to please everyone. I am guessing that many of you have made homemade pizza before, so what I'm about to share isn't necessarily earth-shattering. However, I hope that this post will give you some fun ideas for new toppings or, if you're not someone who makes homemade pizza, maybe you'll start making it after reading this! :)

First of all, I am sad to say that I've never actually made my own pizza dough. It's on my cooking/baking to-do list though! When I finally get around to making my own dough I'll have to have a sequel to this blog post for you. In the meantime though, I'll share that 90% of the time when I make homemade pizza, I use fresh dough from an Italian chain restaurant that's here in the Boston area, Bertucci's. I think they're in a few other states, but they're definitely not a nation-wide chain. Anyway, a few years ago I discovered that you can actually buy THEIR dough, which is seriously one of the best pizza doughs/crusts I know. So for those if you who may live near a Bertucci's and didn't know you can buy their dough, now you know! Exciting, right?! If I don't buy Bertucci's dough, I usually just buy the fresh dough in the grocery store. If whole wheat is an option in the store, I often opt for that (Bertucci's is not whole wheat). A delicious dough is essential to delicious pizza, so be sure you find one that you love!

I have found that it's easiest to work with dough that's cold, so I usually leave mine in the fridge until I'm ready to use it. I also sometimes sprinkle it with flour before I begin to roll it out. Another idea is to sprinkle flour or cornmeal on the surface on which you're rolling out the dough. I most often end up only using my hands though; I don't really "roll it out," per se. I'm usually able to stretch it enough by "playing" :) with it in my hands, and that works just fine for me! I tend to shape it into an oblong shape more often than round, but either works! I don't have a pizza stone (maybe I should look into getting one though!!!), so I just put my pizza on a cookie sheet.

About 99% of the time, I use red sauce on my pizza. Depending on what I have, sometimes I use just plain ol' tomato sauce in a can, and other times I use pasta sauce. Anything goes here, folks! I don't care for too much sauce, so my pizza tends to look like this:

On this particular pizza, I was using Classico pasta sauce, as you can see here!

I would like to try making my own white sauce sometime (I think I have before but I don't know what recipe I used!). This recipe here looks pretty good if you're in the mood for white sauce. A few times now we've actually put barbecue sauce on our pizza in place of red sauce... Such a fun twist on the "norm"!

Next, onto the exciting step of adding your pizza toppings!!!! Although I am not a vegetarian, there are many days when I could go without meat and not miss it one bit. Love my veggies! Typically, I like to load up my pizza with a variety of delish veggies...and then sometimes I add meat too. ;-)

On this pizza below, I put tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, and roasted sweet potatoes.

Now, I have to say that there are some veggies that I think are much better on a pizza if you cook them first! Examples include onions, broccoli, peppers (any kind - red, green, etc.), and sweet potatoes. For veggies like peppers, I usually just saute them in a pan on the stove under they're just tender. If you don't cook them ahead of time, I personally think they're a bit too crunchy! Onions I tend to cook more, until they're light to medium golden brown in color. You could also cook them all the way until they're caramelized! That would be very yummy. I just usually don't take the time to do that. But here's a recipe for caramelizing onions if you're interested. ;-) Mushrooms are a veggie that could go either way; I've cooked them prior to going on the pizza before, but I've also put them on raw. Either is fine! And as a side note, if you decide to go non-traditional and try barbecue sauce instead of red sauce as I mentioned earlier, I'd recommend onions, green peppers, and chicken as toppings. Love that combo!

Now, onto a favorite topping of mine...sweet potatoes! Because I am a tad obsessed with sweet potatoes, I almost always have them in the house! I love roasting sweet potatoes with various spices like salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic, chili powder, etc...anything goes! So if at all possible, if I can, I add roasted sweet potatoes to my pizza....such a great addition, I tell ya!

This next pizza has a different variety of veggies on it. I believe I see mushrooms, spinach, red peppers, broccolini, and mashed sweet potatoes. MASHED sweet potatoes? Yes! This pizza was fun because I actually used leftovers I had from when I went out to dinner. I had some broccolini and mashed sweet potatoes left over and thought to myself, these would be perfect on pizza! And they were.

Here's a few pics of that same pizza in the prep stages. ;-)

Veggies...

What's that you see? Could it be bacon? It is! I had some bacon in the freezer, so I decided that would be  a fun and different topping to add (we didn't add too much though, so it didn't make the pizza that unhealthy ;-)). We cooked it on the stove before crumbling it and putting it onto the pizza.

On the pizza below, I believe we put mushroom, tomato, sweet potato (roasted of course!), and chicken! Yum yum yum. Seriously, I'm getting hungry as I type this...

And I know you know this, but definitely cook your chicken before putting it on your pizza. It won't cook thoroughly otherwise. :-P

Close-up! Is your mouth watering yet?! Mine is...

Finally now, we can't forget the cheese! I often go the easy route and add simple shredded cheese to my pizzas. I buy it already shredded in the store...mozzarella, italian blend, mexican blend...anything is a-okay with pizza really! So pick whatever you like best. Sometimes I'll add a less typical, yet very delicious cheese, like goat or gorgonzola. Mmmmm. You could also buy a nice, fresh ball of mozzarella and put slices of it on the pizza. Gosh, that sounds good! This is the fun of making homemade pizza - you decide what goes on it! Oh, and you also can't go wrong with sprinkling some parmesan on either. ;-)

To be completely honest, I don't necessarily always bake my pizza at the same temperature for the same amount of time. I just do it - I don't think about it! I believe though that my oven is usually on around 400 or 425 degrees. I'd say check your pizza as soon as 10 or 12 minutes have passed. Sometimes it really doesn't take long! A typical cooking time though is probably 12 to 15 minutes or so. When your cheese is melted (and maybe slightly golden) and your crust is a nice, light golden brown, you're good to go! It's best to let the pizza sit for a few minutes before slicing it too. ENJOY!

Let me know if you have any other fun topping ideas! I'd love to hear them!

Hey, I just realized that this is the third type of pizza I've shared with you here at the Barbershop. I've previously shared two less common pizzas...a candy pizza and a breakfast pizza. You've got all your meals covered now!

Have a great weekend, friends. :)

Homemade Granola "Bites"

Greetings, all! Hope everyone is doing well. I'm back from sunny CA where temperatures were in the 60's during the day....this bitter cold weather in Boston is a shock to the system, I tell ya! We had a great time running the Surf City half marathon (below is a picture of my sister and me after the race :)) and seeing some of the sites on the west coast. And now it's back to reality! And you know what that means...another yummy Barbershop treat for you!

I made homemade granola bars (or "bites" - you'll see why I call them bites later on) to bring along on our trip because I actually forgot to buy some granola bars at the store to bring! Luckily I had all the necessary ingredients on hand, so I whipped up a batch before we left. I decided to use the Food Network's Barefoot Contessa's recipe for homemade granola bars since it received such high ratings online. I would have to agree with the ratings too, as these were quite the delicious snack!

To start, in the oven, you toast oatmeal, almonds, coconut. Meanwhile, on the stove, cook the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt (note: I did not have quite enough honey so I used molasses to make up the difference).

Once the toasted mixture of dry ingredients come out of the oven, you combine them with the liquid mixture just cooked on the stove...I also added flaxseeds (maybe 1/8 to 1/4 cup). You can see them in the bottom of the dish below!

And the rest of the dry ingredients...

Once that mixture is well coated with the liquid mixture, add your other ingredients. The recipe I followed calls for dried cranberries, chopped dates, and chopped apricots... I added some craisins that I had on hand (but it was probably only 1/3 cup or so) and some chopped dates. I did not have apricots though. As a substitute for the items I didn't have, I added sunflower seeds and chocolate chips. :-D I figured chocolate would be a great addition. Wouldn't you agree? Oh, I also forgot to mention that I did not add wheat germ since I didn't have it on hand.

Once all the ingredients are well-combined, everything gets baked in a 13 x 9 pan at 300 degrees. The recipe says to bake it for 25 to 30 minutes, but mine was a nice golden brown after just 20 minutes so check yours early!

Pre-baking...

Post-baking!

The mixture needs to cool for at least 2 or 3 hours, so feel free to spend that time doing something else fun or productive while you wait. ;-)

I read some of the online reviews of this recipe that it was difficult to cut them into bars. I tried to at first but also found it challenging to cut them evenly... So instead, I just broke them into pieces of various sizes with my hands. I think I'll call them granola "bites" as a result. They're a bit more fun sounding that way too, don't you think?! No matter the shape, they're super tasty - I promise!

These granola bites are definitely on the crunchy side, so if you're expecting a chewy texture you'll be surprised! I looooved the flavor combo of the different ingredients added...craisins, coconut, almonds, chocolate, etc. Delicious! Unfortunately, the recipe online did not provide nutritional stats, so I can't tell you how many calories, grams of fat, etc. are in these. However, most of the add-in ingredients have great nutritional value on their own (e.g., dates, oatmeal, almonds) so I think these can certainly be a guilt-free snack. ;-) We definitely enjoyed them on our trip! They helped us run FAST in our race, I'm convinced of it!!!

See you again soon!

Butternut Squash Dip

Greetings and happy February! I have a fun recipe for you here that doesn't involve baking! In fact, it doesn't even involve the stove or oven at all!! All you need is your handy dandy microwave. ;-) This is a recipe for a deeeelicious dip made with butternut squash. I made this for the first time for our New Year's Eve gathering and have been meaning to share it with you ever since then! I fell in love with this dip immediately. Why? Well, there are a few reasons...  First of all, it's YUMMY. It's so yummy that it's addicting. Seriously. Secondly, it's EASY. So easy. Thirdly, it's fairly healthy! Well, it's healthy in the sense that it contains the nutrient-laden veggie of butternut squash. Two of the other ingredients, parmesan cheese and sour cream, may not be so healthy themselves...but if you enjoy this in moderation, you're still going to gain the benefits of the squash but not too many calories!

As I said, this recipe is simple. It involves:

Microwaving frozen butternut squash.

Mixing that with sour cream, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.

EATING.

That's it!

Oh, and here's the actual recipe I followed so you know the measurements when you're making this yourself. :) I know you're going to!!

Here are a couple pics of the dip and several other goodies we had for NYE (over a month ago now!).

I have had this dip cold, at room temp, and warm. It's delicious any way, I promise you! I still can't decide which is my favorite. I've served this with crackers and veggies so far. I haven't served it with bread yet, so I'll have to do that next time (maybe a sliced, toasted baguette would be yummy?!). As I said above, it's addicting. Watch out!!

Mmmmmmm.

I'm off to sunny California first thing tomorrow morning to run a half marathon this weekend! It'll probably be a week or so until I can blog again, but I look forward to bringing you another tasty Barbershop treat soon. As usual, I have several waiting on deck!

Oh, one more thing...  I'd love your opinion on my new blog layout and design! I thought I'd change it up a bit. It's still not definite that I'll keep this, but I'd love your thoughts to help me make my decision. Thanks!! :)