Quick Recap and Lemon-Yogurt Muffins

We’re back again after a more extended break than expected.  Life has a way of really catching up with you when you least expect it.

So, to sum up, in the past two weeks, there were two experiments: one a variation on the Cherry & Irish Cream truffles, the other a take on vegan truffles.

Cherry & Amaretto Truffles

I took the advice of my cousin who posted some recommendations on my previous cherry truffle variant.  I switched up the Irish Cream with Amaretto, and soaked the cherries for most of the day before boiling/pureeing.

If you’re interested in making them, just modify the recipe from a few weeks ago with the amaretto, and get a bit of an earlier start.

You can see below that they look the same, but the flavor was absolute heaven!

Vegan Truffles

These truffles were born from a desire to share my truffles with a close friend of mine who is vegan.  Obviously, this is a bit of tricky endeavor, as many varieties of chocolate (and certainly the cream!) do not qualify as vegan.

But, I did my research and found several brands of vegan chocolate.  I also picked up some soy milk to use in place of cream.

Where I think I went wrong was the ratio of soy milk to chocolate.  I think for the vegan truffles, I really need to use a smaller amount of the milk, because the result, while delicious, was not really recognizable as ganache.

So, instead of rolling the mixture into truffles, we spooned it into cups and added toppings as we saw fit.  An excellent end to an excellent experiment.  I will be attempting this again at some point when I’ve done more research on substitutes and how to use them.  My first thought is coconut milk instead of soy milk, I feel like it’s a bit creamier and may yield a more rich filling.

Today’s Experiment - Lemon-Yogurt Muffins

The Motivation: Plain and simple, the strongest craving for lemon-y baked goodness.

The Inspiration: The Chobani pinterest boards filled with foods made with yogurt.  Found a lemon muffin recipe and decided to run with it.

So, I loaded up on baking supplies, lemon peel, and lemon Chobani and set off to make some muffins.

I wasn’t sure how the yogurt would really react in a muffin (side note, I’ve really been wanting to pick up Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking to help me understand the basics of baking), but I know it’s been successfully done.  But the further loop was that it was greek yogurt, which is different from regular yogurt.

My sister helped me pull this all together, so I have to provide her a kudos!  Love my sister!

However, the entire thing was a success.  I didn’t even get a chance to take any photos of these, because they were devoured by my family before they even had a chance to cool.

The muffins were moist, fluffy, and full of yogurt flavor.  Next time I’ll lower the cooking temp, as the bottoms separated from the top and were very definitely overly cooked, but the tart glaze definitely made up for this small flaw.  I’ll probably also zest a lemon for the glaze, because I love fresh lemon zest!

Needless to say, they’ll be hitting the table again sometime, when my craving for lemon comes back…which it does on a regular basis.

Lemon-Yogurt Muffins

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup lemon or plain yogurt
• 6 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Glaze:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

Step One) Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, lemon zest, baking powder, baking soda, and salt).

Step Two) Mix together the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl until well blended (yogurt, egg, butter, lemon juice).

Step 3) Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients until moist. 

Step 4) Fill greased muffin tins (or muffin liners) until 2/3 full. 

Step 5) Put in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees (or 375, which will be my next experiment), bake for 20 – 24 minutes.

Step 6) Combine glaze ingredients in saucepan, heat until sugar dissolves.

Step 7) Remove muffins from oven, let sit 5 minutes (in pan – according to recipe).  After 5 minutes, poke 6-8 holes in the top with a toothpick. (Or, if you’re like me, grab a fork and stab each muffin twice – much faster!). 

Step 8) Spoon glaze over each muffin to allow it to soak the top and into the holes.

Step 9) Devour.