Recipe #33: Cocoa Spice Muffins

Cocoa Spice Muffins

These muffins were very good. I worried that the spices would be too much when I first mixed the batter, but they were not overpowering once the muffins were made. There is also molasses in the mix, which comes through ever-so-slightly in the muffins. They taste somewhat like chocolate gingerbread, which is not a bad thing. 😋

I got the recipe from the Hershey's website: Chocolate Spiced Muffins. Their recipe used cocoa as did the 201 Muffins recipe, but the Hershey's recipe called for chocolate chips, whereas the 201 Muffins recipe called for walnuts and no chocolate chips. So I replaced the chips with the walnuts. I think the change made the muffins just as good, though not as chocolaty. And walnuts always go well with chocolate, as we all know!

My tasters all enjoyed them, so I will keep this recipe. Obviously, cooks can count on Hershey's!

Recipe #32: Cocoa-Raisin-Walnut Muffins

Cocoa-Raisin-Walnut Muffins

For these muffins I used a recipe from Fisher Nuts: Chocolate Walnut Muffins. But since the 201 Muffins recipe called for raisins, and the Fisher Nuts recipe called for chocolate chips (in addition to walnuts), I simply substituted raisins for chocolate chips. The combination made for a very good muffin--delicious, in fact, though really more like a cupcake than a muffin.

The recipe was easy to make and the results were very good. The yield was a bit larger than the recipe indicated, though--16 instead of 12 muffins.

My tasters also enjoyed them. I must say that it's certainly nice to have recipes I can trust. When you have nice ingredients like cocoa, walnuts and raisins, you expect the results to be very good, not unpredictable and frequently bad, as they were with the book's recipes.

So, on to the next muffin idea: Cocoa Spice Muffins.

Recipe #31: Citrus Muffins

Citrus Muffins

For this batch of muffins, I used a recipe from BettyCrocker.com. It called for orange and lemon peel as the main flavoring (I added 2 tsp. triple sec), and a larger than usual amount of sugar, making the muffins somewhat plain but sweet. The original recipe (in 201 Muffins) used less sugar and more citrus peel, but since it seemed a bit bizarre otherwise, I couldn't trust it.

The muffins the Betty Crocker recipe produced did not have a strong orange flavor, though, so I probably won't use that recipe again. The recipe also called for a sugar-orange peel topping which was pretty, but didn't really add much flavor. It did add texture to the muffins, though, which would have been a little bland otherwise.

The only other objection I had to the recipe was that the orange-lemon peel in the topping got toasted and turned black, making the appearance less appealing. In the photo on the website, however, there was no trace of dark brown specks, and that makes me wonder if they altered the photo to take away the specks.

But despite these flaws, I thought they were very good tasting and my tasters agreed.

I rate these muffins 4.5 out of 5, mostly for the lack of citrus flavor.

Next: Cocoa-Walnut-Raisin Muffins

Recipe #30: Cinnamon-and-Raisin Muffins

Cinnamon-and-Raisin Muffins

For these muffins, I found a nice alternative recipe on the internet at the following address: Erren's Kitchen. These muffins had no sugar added, but with the raisins and the sugar-cinnamon topping, they were sweet enough. I thought the end result tasted much like cinnamon coffee cake. They would have been enhanced by added walnuts or pecans, but I wanted to stay as close as possible to the recipe in the 201 Muffins book--at least with the basic ingredients, anyway.

Though the recipe called for six large muffins, I decided to make a dozen small muffins. (The photo shows only 11 because I ate one before I took the picture--baker's privilege.😉) I also used margarine in place of the butter, but if I make these again, I will probably use unsalted butter instead because the margarine added too much salt, in my opinion.

I thought they were very good and my tasters also enjoyed them and said they would definitely want to have them again. I rate these muffins 5 out of 5.

This was the first recipe I made to substitute for the 201 Muffins recipe. I think it was a success, so I will continue making muffins that are suggested by the recipes in the book using alternative recipes I find on the internet.

Next up: Citrus Muffins

Recipe #29: Chorizo-and-Corn Muffins

After reading the label on the chorizo I bought for these muffins (something I should've done earlier, needless to say), I learned that the sausage is made from the lymph nodes and salivary glands of pigs. When I looked that up, I further learned that such pork by-products are only used in cheap chorizo (the kind I bought) and in fact many people find them quite disgusting. That information was enough to turn me off cheap chorizo for the foreseeable future. So, I will not be making these muffins and I threw the chorizo away.

Recipe #28: Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins

Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins

I'm not sure what was the problem with these muffins. They came out very gummy, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth gummy, which is not what you want in a muffin. I'm guessing the problem was with the cup of raspberry preserves called for in the recipe. Since there was only 2 cups of flour, a cup of preserves seemed excessive and I think that's why the muffins came out gummy. I'm not sure about the science, but I wonder if the jelly got cooked to the point of turning to gum. The top of the muffins even looked as if they had been boiled (see photo). It's the only reason I can think of. There is also a possibility that I cooked them too long; but if so, it was because they were not done in the 20 minutes called for in the recipe.

At any rate, though the chocolate and raspberry flavors were nice, the muffins were inedible.

Since this is the fifth recipe in a row that turned out bad, I've decided this recipe book is not worth continuing with. The recipes are simply too unreliable. If they were kitchen tested, then I can only conclude that the editing is so poor that the recipes have not been printed as they had intended to be made. If they weren't kitchen tested, then the publishers should be ashamed.

I may, however, continue to make muffins from the ideas presented in the book, just using different, and presumably kitchen-tested, recipes. After all, that is what attracted me to the recipes in the first place. If I do continue in that way, the next muffins will be Chorizo Corn Muffins. Stay tuned for more in the near future.

Recipe #27: Chocolate Fudge Muffins

Chocolate Fudge Muffins

This recipe was different than what I'm used to with muffin recipes. For starters, it didn't have any leavening, just extra eggs. And it had a lot of butter as well. It seemed like a pound cake recipe, in fact. But pound cake, as most people know, has to be baked for a long time. This recipe called for a 300-degree oven temperature, which seemed a little cool, and the baking time was given as the usual 15 to 20 minutes. I was skeptical that the muffins would be done in that amount of time, and sure enough, they weren't. When I tested them after 20 minutes, they were still gooey inside. I baked them for a total of about 35 minutes, and they didn't rise very high, either, as you can see from the picture. Another odd feature of the recipe was the yield given: 23 to 24 muffins. That I immediately ignored since the recipe called for the usual 2 cups of flour.

The muffins tasted good (mostly due to the chocolate), but had a texture more like brownies than muffins. So, I guess it wasn't a total failure, but it was once again a recipe that had to be modified.

I have to give them 4 out of 5, just because of the recipe errors.

Next up:  Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins