Blackberry Streusel Muffins

Saturday is off to a great start. I got to sleep in until my body decided it was ready to wake up today. This was the first time in 6 months, that I didn't have to wake up to the sound of my alarm going off at 4:30AM to get up and do a 16, 18 or 20 mile run. Since September 2009 I have been coaching and training for several marathons, which finally came to an end last Sunday at the New Orleans Rock N' Roll Marathon. So today when my eyes opened for the first time at 7:52AM I happily rolled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to make a homemade breakfast. No more eating bagels with peanut butter with my eyes half open in the dark for a pre-run breakfast.

Today, I wanted to celebrate some normalcy in my life again, which consisted of sleeping in and making a homemade breakfast. Growing up I never was really a big breakfast fan, I would always just eat a pop tart, toaster struddle or a bowl of cereal. But over the last couple of years, I have come to realize that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day and the one that gets your body moving in the morning. There are so many great breakfast foods out there that I have grown to love like eggs, bacon, homemade pancakes, cheese grits and I could go on and on. Now I eat eggs almost every morning, thanks to my husband, he knows how to cook eggs all kinds of ways, sunny side up, over easy, hard boiled, scrambled and even makes omelets crammed full of all kinds of veggies and cheese.

This morning I wanted to step up to the plate though and make eggs for him to accompany the blackberry muffins I had been wanting to make for a few weeks now. I took the easy way out and made sunny side up eggs, all you have to do is crack them open in a skillet and let them cook for a few minutes, it is just that simple! I think they turned out pretty good, except for the little piece of egg white that is creeping into one of the yolks.

Well now that I have rambled on and on about eggs...I have realized that the whole meaning for this post was for the blackberry muffins! I absolutely love blackberries. My husband took me to my first blackberry and blueberry farm soon after we started dating during college about 8 years ago. Ever since then I have been hooked on these tiny little berry clusters! Blackberry cobbler is my all-time favorite, but I wanted to see if I could come up with a muffin recipe that I could enjoy just as much! Right now my freezer is stocked full with bags of frozen blackberries. When I was home in KY at Christmas we stopped by my grandparents house and they loaded us up with frozen bags full of blackberries. My grandfather plants rows of blackberry plants every year in his back yard, picks them when they are ripe and then freezes them to use throughout the year in jams, cakes, cobblers, etc. I figured the time was long over due to use up some of these delicious berries.

I just love how vibrant the blackberries look inside of the muffin. Sometimes blackberries are a little tart so before I incorporated them into the batter I sprinkled them with some sugar and cinnamon first to add a little extra sweetness.

My favorite part to any muffin is when there is streusel on top. I just love the crunchy combination of brown and white sugar and cinnamon.

Blackberry Streusel Muffins

Ingredients:
-1/2 stick butter, melted
-2 eggs
-1 cup milk
-1/2 cup applesauce
-1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
-1 1/2 cups wheat flour
-1 cup sugar
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 1/2 cups blackberries, fresh or frozen

Streusel Topping:
-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
-1/4 cup brown sugar
-1/4 cup sugar
-1/2 stick butter, cut into tiny cubes
-1 teaspoon cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin pans with cooking spray. I made 6 jumbo muffins and 8 standard muffins with this recipe.
  
• Combine the butter, eggs, milk and applesauce in a medium bowl.
• Combine the all-purpose flour, wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.
• Add 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon to blackberries and mix to coat. Stir in the blackberries.
• Spoon batter into prepared muffin pans about 2/3 full.
• Combine all streusel ingredients together in a bowl and mix together by running a fork through the butter to create pea size streusel crumbs.
  
• Bake standard size muffins for 20 minutes and jumbo size muffins 22-24 minutes.
  

ENJOY!

Muffin Tin Advent Calendar

I know Thanksgiving hasn't even come and gone yet, but I am already planning out my Christmas baking plans and wanted to share with you all this super cute idea! Last year I found one of the most creative ideas I have ever seen in a holiday craft book called Celebrate the Holidays to create a homemade advent calendar using a muffin tin. Unfortunately by the time I had discovered this unique way to countdown the days to Christmas the month of December was already half over. I have been anxiously awaiting for December to roll around this year so I could create this calendar as this brings me back to my childhood. Every year my sister and I would get an advent calendar that had a holiday scene on it with perforated windows that would punch out and have a piece of candy behind them. Each day we were so excited to open up the window on the calendar and reveal the shape of the chocolate whether it was a tree, bell, ornament or present, as we counted down the 24 days to Christmas.

With this muffin tin advent calendar I plan to place a piece of paper that contains a fun holiday recipe in each compartment that I will make and share with you so we can count down the 24 days to Christmas together. The recipes I plan to make will be family favorites that we have made over the years at Christmas time or brand new recipes that I have come across that I think you will really enjoy! So be sure to check back on Dec 1, 2, 3, 4 and all the way to the 24th for a unique way to celebrate this holiday season!

There is still plenty of time to make your own muffin tin advent calendar so I'm going to share with you all the materials you will need to get started!


Muffin Tin Advent Calendar Supplies:

• 24-piece Wilton muffin tin
• patterned paper
• magnetic sheet
• stickers & embellishments
  

1. Sand over a 24-piece muffin tin to give it an aged look.
2. Cut twenty four 2 1/2" squares from a magnetic sheet and cover each with an assortment of paper and embellishments.
3. Place candy inside the holes and cover with the magnets.


Pull back the adhesive layer from the magnetic sheet and place a piece of your pre-cut patterned paper over top. Place the magnet over a muffin tin hole and continue this same process until all 24 holes are covered.


Once all the muffin holes have been covered, use stickers to number the days 1-24 and then add on any extra embellishments you wish to add a special touch to your advent calendar.


Look how cute this calender turned out! The possibilities are endless with what you can fill the muffin holes with. So now that you know how I am going to personalize my advent calendar with a new recipe each day, I'm going to share with you some ideas on how you and your family can personalize your advent calendar.

1.Place a piece of candy in each hole
2.Write the name of a Christmas carol on a piece of paper and place in each hole, and sing a song a day until Christmas (Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, O Holy Night, etc.)
3.Write down a family activity that you can do as you count down the days to Christmas (buy a tree, make popcorn garland, go ice skating, make a snowman, etc.)

If you plan to make an advent calendar, leave me a comment letting me know what you plan on putting in each muffin hole to celebrate the countdown to Christmas!