Muffin Success!

Holy cow! My muffins turned out so well! They are DELICIOUS!!!

You're probably thinking, "It's muffins. Calm down."

But there is a long story behind it, starting with all of my epic FAILS in baking over the last year or so. It all started with the Fat City Chocolate Chip Cookies...

It's a family recipe. And I am (or was) well-known for my chocolate chip cookies amongst my friends. I made the best darned chocolate chip cookies EVAR. And then I moved. And now, I make the worst chocolate chip cookies ever. They used to be fluffy and soft and delicious. Now, they melt like tar in an Indiana summer after 5 minutes of baking in the oven and look like flat, nasty things with giant brown warts (those would be the chocolate chips). I can't for the life of me figure out what I did wrong!

So I tried substitutes. Original recipe called for margarine or butter. I used margarine before, so I used butter this time. I had read that several other people had "runny" cookies as a result of using margarine, but that it was better when they used butter. Okay. Didn't help me. The cookies looked the same. I had also read that cookies were more fluffy if you use Bisquick instead of flour. So I did that. No dice.

Then I read on a few sites that freezing the dough for 10 minutes prior to putting them in clumps on the baking sheet helped them stay fluffy, too. So I did that. And still failed.

So, after about 4 different batch attempts, I gave up on the cookies. I moved on to cakes. Long story short, the Pam spray and I never saw eye-to-eye. Either too much or not enough was used. And again, I seemed to have to bake the cake for a LONG time in order for it all to bake, which resulted in a perfect center, but a crispy burnt edge. *sigh*

And then there were the muffins... I found a recipe for banana nut muffins. It was different from any other recipe I'd tried, and sounded tasty. So I tried it. My old foe Pam struck again. I was out of cupcake wrappers, so I had to Pam the bottom of the pan. She must not have gotten along with the bottom of the pan. I baked these lovely-looking muffins, and was so excited - until I tried to get them out of the pan, and they crumbled to pieces because it's as if the Pam was sucked into the center of the muffin, making it gooey and gross. I wanted to cry.

So I made my husband take me to the store for cupcake wrappers. I wasn't going to lose again. We picked up wrappers and new bananas. I put the bananas out and once they were quite spotted, put them in the fridge for a week to get brown and gushy (makes for the sweetest banana bread and muffins).

Today was the day I won the war.

I put the wrappers in the pan. I mixed the mix according to the recipe, adding my secret ingredient (that will remain secret). I plopped the dough by spoonfuls into the pan. I baked it for the allotted time. I checked the centers with a toothpick. I pulled them out and let them cool. I approached the pan, and liberally lifted a muffin from its place, holding my breath. The muffin came out without a fuss. BUT...would it stay in tact once the wrapper is removed?? I slowly removed the wrapper, breath caught in my throat, and lo and behold...it was the most beautiful banana chocolate chip muffin I'd ever made! And it stayed in tact! I took a bite, and victory swelled all around me! HA!

So I attached a picture of these beautiful muffins, because today is an epic WIN day for me, and I thought I would share it with you all. Because it's the little things in life that make me happy :)