How To Get Stuck Muffins Out From The Tin Without Ruining Them

If you haven't noticed, I love cooking. And baking. That doesn't mean that I don't have my issues while baking. I really hate it when I make something and it sticks in the pan. It's so frustrating to go through the effort of making something delicious and then having it ruined by not coming out when it's supposed to. I found a great solution.

Of course, nothing beats actually properly greasing your pans, but there are times when I think I greased every part of it but missed something. For muffins, I generally try squeezing the top of the muffin and twisting gently so that it releases. There is a portion of the time when the muffin top simply breaks off, of course. Those muffins simply need to be eaten.

When I had a few muffins start sticking last week, having a multitude of broken muffins wasn't an option. They were for a bake sale, and I had a minimum quantity I had to bake and didn't have the time or energy to make more. I had to find a better solution. After frantically taking a mental inventory of my kitchen, I found my new favorite tool.

My fondue fork was perfect. It was slim enough to fit down the sides of the pan without damaging the muffins, and it was long enough to give me leverage to be able to get the muffins out. It worked beautifully. I simply gently slid it along the edge of the muffin, trying to lever it out. If it moved, great. It not, I simply slid it sideways a bit and tried again. Not a single muffin stayed stuck. It was awesome.

I'm wondering if it would work with my molten chocolate cakes, too.... And yes, I'll share the recipe for the awesome pumpkin chocolate chip muffins I made tomorrow. Yum. And dairy free and nut free.

It's Birthday-palooza!

I bake, as you ummm may have figured out from reading my posts. (Side note: up soon key lime parfaits! I saw my recipe for this recently and need to make them again.) I tend to not turn on the oven much in the summer because it's too hot. I always make an exception this weekend.

Today? My husband's birthday.
Tomorrow? Little Miss's birthday.
Monday? My dad's birthday.

No one will share a cake. And they each want their own kinds. And I can't take a half eaten cake to a birthday party for Little Miss. That adds up to four cakes in four days, just in case you're wondering.

This afternoon, I started my efforts. Because Little Miss is having her party at a beauty salon, they don't allow actual cake because of the mess it creates. However, they're (for whatever reason -- and I'm not questioning this!) totally cool with individual cupcakes. So I'm making ice cream cone cupcakes.

This is what I'm aiming for (pre-frosted):



But it's not all sunshine and lemonade when I'm baking, as much as I wish it were. There was a "minor" mishap as I was checking the cupcakes' doneness. They just about all tipped over. When they were mostly half done. This one happened to land on another one and didn't tip all the way over. I'm thinking frosting will save it.



This one landed face down across the door of the oven. And cupcake ended up falling to the floor and all along the hinge of the door. *sigh* There's no saving it. On the plus side, half-baked cupcakes taste pretty good. And I did forget to eat lunch today....



I also learned that trying to use a cracked cone is not a good idea. I figure it'll taste good once frosted, even though it's obviously not going to the party.



So what are your worst baking accidents (and no, this was by FAR not my worst)?

Black Friday, Indeed

I'm not a huge fan of Black Friday. I don't like shopping on the best of days, and combine an early morning with the great unwashed masses, and I'll take a pass.


Granted, this was an informed decision. I looked through all the ads and decided that no, really, there wasn't anything I needed or that called out to me that made me want to get up at 4am. Selling an iPod for $0.30 wouldn't make me want to wake up at 4am though, so I'll admit that's a pretty high bar.


Instead, I decided to have a nice, relaxing Friday. The plan was to sleep in as long as the wee ones would let us (which generally means 7:30am) and then get up and head to the gym. From there, I was going to stop at Costco to get my annual cookbook -- because, you know, I don't have nearly enough cookbooks -- and restock the milk that I used making the pumpkin trifle on Thanksgiving (more on that to come). From there, I was heading to the blood donation center for my 12:10 appointment before getting the oil changed in my car and then making cookies until friends arrived for dinner.


Yeah.


What's that saying again? The best laid plans?


I did get to sleep in a bit, and we had a lovely breakfast where everyone ate the granola that I made for myself yesterday. I don't mind sharing my granola because it's really good for you and I like seeing the wee ones make good eating choices, but it's a forty five minute process that requires my attention for the majority of it. And it only makes a couple weeks' worth of servings. Since I put it into the canister yesterday, about two-thirds of it has been eaten. Of course, with Daddy and Little Miss and Mister Man all eating their fill, breakfast took a bit longer than expected, so we didn't get out the door until 9:30, which was later than I'd anticipated and gave me just enough time to grab a slice of pizza from Costco before heading to the blood donation appointment.


Shhh. I haven't been to the gym in awhile to run. I've done my belly dancing and yoga, but on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays lately, I've been otherwise occupied. I decided to not try to do a 25 minute run but instead regress to the middle of week six and do two ten minute runs. Of course my gym has replaced all the treadmills I liked with new ones. And being the day after Thanksgiving when no one is working, it was busy and I didn't get a treadmill near where I like to be, but that's ok. The first ten minute run wasn't fun, but I survived. I made it six minutes into the second run before I had to stop because I was getting seriously sick to my stomach. Bummer. I walked for a few minutes then tried to do my last four minutes. I made two minutes of torture before the risk of becoming publicly ill was too great for my sensibilities and I decided to walk for a few more minutes.


When I finished walking, I realized that I'd taken longer than I normally do by about seven minutes. That didn't get me hurrying on my way though. Instead, I dawdled a bit to read about the new offerings by the fitness trainers. I finally got into the locker room, took out my stuff from the locker to go take a shower and ... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Seriously? A fire alarm?


All the women sort of looked at each other for a minute or so debating whether this was a drill or whether we really needed to get out. I finally decided that even if it was a drill, the wee ones might like to see a parent as the loud noise is forcing them outside, so I headed over to the kids' area.


As I walked in, they were trying to shepherd the last of the kids out. Mister Man was still sitting at a computer playing with another little boy. When I ordered him out (from across the wall), he finally looked up and started heading out. The child care employees let me come in to go through the exit with him. That's when I saw Little Miss -- the very last child -- coming out of the maze area, so I grabbed her, too.


Right about this time, it dawns on me how lucky I am that I dawdled and took extra time on the treadmill. The alternative was being covered in soap in the shower when the alarm went off. And you thought procrastination never helped!


I didn't, however, think to grab coats or shoes for any of us, so I stood outside in the late November cold in my workout gear, and the wee ones in stocking feet. Oops. The good news is that I was hot enough from running that it took a good fifteen minutes before I started to feel chilly.


We heard the fire engines wailing towards the gym, which you'd expect. Whether it's a false alarm or not, you have to have the fire department check it out.

When we heard the second set of fire engines approaching, I started berating myself for not grabbing my purse and coat. The rest of it, I was fine with losing, but I was getting cold now and who knew how serious this was. *sigh*


The good news is that it was just a kitchen fire. Something in the oven went bad, but it was minor, and they reopened the gym after twenty-five or so minutes. And once they knew the fire was under control, the childcare workers were allowed to go inside to get everyone's coats and hats.

Of course by the time we actually got our coats and hats, everyone was allowed back inside, so we went on our merry way. Of course, this put me even further behind schedule. I wasn't missing out on my cookbook though, so I still stopped by Costco. That and Daddy had to drink black coffee this morning because we had no milk left. Costco wasn't an option.


Fortunately, I made it to Costco with no mishaps, and the ten minute line at the food court was really only a minor inconvenience considering how late I was for my blood appointment. Lucky for me, they still let me donate. AND still gave me a $15 Starbucks gift card. I did realize on my way home that I didn't get my Four Seasons gift, but I can live without it.


When I got home, I started baking.

I started volunteering at the Evanston Animal Shelter back when I was in college. I continued volunteering there even after I graduated and moved into the city. I volunteered when I moved out of the city and west, when it was an hour and fifteen minutes for me to get there and back. When I had Mister Man, I finally gave up the weekly commitment, but I still help out at their annual C.A.R.E. Faire.

The C.A.R.E. Faire is an annual holiday bazaar they run on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They have pet pictures with Santa, a huge raffle, all sorts of pet goodies and vendors, and -- the biggest draw -- the cookie walk. We sell cookies by the pound where people start at one end with a box and a glove and choose what cookies they want. Seventy feet later, I stand with the scales and do the weighing and collecting of money. And hey, if anyone in Chicagoland needs something to do tomorrow, the Unitarian Church in Ev is hosting the C.A.R.E. Faire from 11am to 5pm.

Every year, I have to be the cashier. This used to be because the cookies were $6 per pound or $7 per pound and no one could do the math when it was 2 1/4 pound, and no one was comfortable giving change when the total was $14.25. I was drafted. I'm still drafted, and it's something I really enjoy doing -- with the one exception of the rude gentleman last year who wanted to know how I accounted for the weight of the box when weighing out his cookies.


In order to have seventy feet of cookies for six hours, that requires a lot of volunteer baking. I used to bring boxes of cookies. With the wee ones, I can't quite get that many made, but I do my fair share. These are the cookies we made this year:



Zebra Bars, Delectable Cream Cheese Cookies, Jelly Cookies, and Karen's Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies.

It's the last one that were the bane of my existence. I should really know better than to double a recipe I've never made before. In fact, I should have known it due to the issues I had when making the Zebra Bars. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, however.

The cookies themselves are really easy to make. It's a basic dough that you press into mini-muffin molds before adding a cherry and pouring a topping over it -- and therein lies the problem. I only have a single dozen mini-muffin pan. I doubled the recipe, which means somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 dozen cookies. That's a lot of waiting around for cookies to cool to remove from the pan before being able to start the process with the next batch.


As the first batch was cooking, I decided to get creative. I have little molds that I bought for Mister Man's fourth birthday party that we made chocolates in (yes, I'm insane for letting four year old children work with melted chocolate but that's a different post). They were about the right size and made of silicone. Perfect!

Umm, not so perfect. The silicone they were made out of wasn't exactly oven safe silicone. When the timer went off, I saw the molds melting all over the oven. And when I tried to use my oven mitt to pull them out, the silicone (which I've since decided isn't actually silicone) started pulling apart in my hands. Whee!



I finally got smart and stuck a jellyroll pan right near the edge of the oven rack and managed to push them onto the jellyroll pan. After that I did single batch by single batch in my metal nonstick solitary mini-muffin tin. I think I only just now took the last batch out of the oven.


Next year? I'm hitting the Black Friday sales. It has to be easier than this, right?

I'm Not *That* Talented!

Among my group of friends, I’m known as the cook, the one who likes to cook and bake. I’m the one who hosts the birthday parties at home and makes the homemade cakes. I enjoy it, and I like to do it for people.

When it comes time for playgroup, people always make sure to show up when it’s at my house, as they know that they’re guaranteed enough food to skip dinner that night. In fact, one friend insists her husband stay late at work on nights I host playgroup.

I’ve had the same playgroup since Mister Man was a few months old. Our group has grown and shrunk and grown again. There are only a few of us who remain from the original group, but we’re all good friends. Until earlier this year, we met every Monday at someone’s house. Now that we all have two children who are involved in a variety of activities, it’s down to once a month. I miss having it every week and seeing all of them as often, but I’ll admit that it was getting really hectic to try to make it every week.

Today was my day, and I have to live up to my reputation. I had planned on making a bunch of food, but I ended up having an unexpected mandatory call for work from 3 to 3:45, while I was planning to get ready for playgroup from 3 to 4:15. Needless to say, it became a bit rushed.

The good news is that I’d planned ahead a little and made cookies the night before. It wasn’t my banana cake or chocolate éclairs or chocolate cherry chip brownies, but they were homemade at least. I also had made a batch of bread dough a little after noon that was rising.

I ended up making homemade bagel dogs and pizza with the dough. In fact, I realized that I had no sauce in the house (whoops!), so it was truly homemade pizza – homemade dough, homemade sauce, homemade cheese. Oh, just kidding there was no homemade cheese.

After that, I cheated. I cut up cheese and put out crackers. I washed the mongo strawberries I bought at 7:30 this morning. I put out pita chips, although I had forgotten to get hummus. Ironically, I bought salsa but forgot chips, so it sort of evened out.

Partway though the playgroup, the following conversation ensued:

Friend A: This is all really good.
Me: Thanks!
Friend A: By the way, what is this white creamy dip? It’s my favorite!
Me: Uhhhh, you mean the Cool Whip?

Apparently my friends have too high of expectations for me. While I do occasionally whip cream myself, I wouldn’t do it for small kids at playgroup. And I had intended to make a yogurt dip for the strawberries but ran out of time. I’m definitely not capable of recreating the creamy goodness of Cool Whip, however!