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As if I needed even more sweet, bready, browned lumps of dough, tonight I baked up a batch of apple coffee cake muffins. I actually do need them, though–to take with me to a party tomorrow. The professor for the drawing class I’ve been a TA (teaching assistant) for this semester likes to turn the final critiques for her classes into food parties. Since there’s a lot more space in the ceramics studio for a nice buffet spread, we really go all out in there with everything from appetizers to dessert all brought in by the students. However, the drawing studio has basically just one small stand we could put food on, plus it doesn’t get thoroughly scrubbed top to bottom like we do to the ceramics studio before the final crit, so bringing a lot of food isn’t really…safe.

So we’re just having a small breakfast party. One student is picking up bagels, another cream cheese and butter, Toby (the professor) is bringing orange juice and utensils, and I offered to bake muffins. :) Starting with a recipe from my now-beloved Martha Stewart Baking Handbook–no joke, I’ve been turning to this book whenever I’m looking to bake something because if she hasn’t included a recipe for what I want, she’s at least offered some tips on how to make it perfect–I modified it to use a fruit that is actually in season: apples. The result?

A nice big tub full of mini apple coffee cake muffins. :D One suffered severe decapitation during my attempt to remove it from the muffin pan, so in its beheaded, dual-part state, it succumbed to the wrath of my tummy. These muffins can be very well summed-up in one word: fantabulous. While not quite like a coffee cake, they definitely have the flavors of one, and they bake up with such a light, delicate, airy, and very moist crumb that I could’ve easily devoured more if it wasn’t for the fact that they are already spoken for. It’s sad that food has to have a designated purpose for me to not eat it. Like the two remaining Portuguese sweet muffins all wrapped up and metaphorically labelled “Robyn’s” for when I see her on Friday. Otherwise they’d be swimming in my tummy with more maple syrup. Mmm.

So hopefully my students will like these tender little morsels as much as I do. Mostly because I really don’t need to be bringing home a ton of super-yummy muffins tomorrow that no longer have any kind of reservation placed on them… ;x

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