These pumpkin muffins were awesome..there is just no other way to describe them. The pumpkin and browned butter worked together to add a beautiful color and an amazingly rich flavor. The ingredients list is long but it is easy to put together.

These are perfect for a breakfast, brunch, or snack. Moist, dense and spicy; pumpkin muffins are autumn in a hand-held package.
Next week is PUMPKIN WEEK on Baking Delights! If you ever wondered:

I love date nut anything.  My mom did not cook a lot but every Holiday Season she would make fruitcake and date nut bread.  It was, I think, the time when I felt our family was the most “normal”.
There is something about coming in on a dim winter afternoon, cheeks frozen from sledding, and smelling the aroma of date nut bread wafting out of the oven.  Not that I have experienced many snowy afternoons here in Texas, but growing up in Bucks County, Pa..well I had my share of Currier and Ives moments!

Making a sweet bread for breakfast means thinking …read more

I like tea cakes.  They aren’t too sweet, they aren’t hard to make, and they aren’t impressive, they are just comfortable to have around.
Sort of like reading a book that does not challenge you in the least but satisfies you deep inside, you know?
Tea cakes.  A really good tea cake should look nice enough to put on a tea table but be plain enough that you can serve leftovers for breakfast next to some eggs and bacon.  Right?
This one will do it.

One of the things I was given as I left the Melrose was a tin of the signature coffee cake.
Opening it up there is a fresh smell of sweet, difficult to identify.  The topping is a praline like candy, reminiscent of brown sugar divinity.  Not quite praline and not quite divinity but somewhere in between.

I am loving the after Christmas clearances at the grocery stores.  I don’t know how it is where you are but apparently people around here did not bake, cook, or buy as much as usual because there are a ton of things clearanced.

Did ya ever wake up, stumble to the kitchen bleary eyed, and wish that Mrs. Cleaver would meet you at the kitchen door, wearing a crisply starched apron, and holding a plate of steaming muffins, fragrant bacon, and fresh, seasonal fruit?
Yeah. Me too.  Is there anyone that actually likes cooking breakfast? I think not.

I am not really sure why I started calling htis quiche recipe Alsatian, only that I did.  It isn’t at all a fancy thing; good stick to your ribs food really.  With having our own chickens, quiche is not only an easy meal, it is a cheap one.
The first time I ever tried quiche I ws 17.  I took my boyfriend’s mom, who I adored, out to shop at a local, upscale mall.  She was from Europe and had not been in the states too long.  We went to a restaurant that I thought she would like and as we …read more

 
I don’t know how many of you know about the cool rise method of yeast baking.  It was, as far as I know, one of those things that was developed in the 1950s or so to help the homemaker get her bread made more conveniently.  It is a process of using a little more yeast and sugar and then allowing the dough to rise in the fridge overnight.  I wanted to see if it would work for my maple pecan rolls so I made a batch of dough last night and stuck them in the fridge.

 
About two weeks ago I attended a special party and I needed to bring something…Hmmm…I was in a rush, as always…what to bring?
SCONES!

I wanted to do something a little different to go with lunch the other day. Usually scones are a breakfast item here, I just don’t think of them for lunch. But with a salad and some Brie these are a great way to round out a light meal.
They are sweet from the glaze. The vanilla mellows out the lavender to make a great taste combination. A few months ago I read about a technique where you grated cold butter into scones and biscuits to give a more tender product. This really does make a difference and I have …read more