I’m not much of a baker, but when I saw a recipe on my BabyCenter.com app for pumpkin muffins, I thought I should try it out. Pumpkin is high in vitamin A and I tweaked the recipe to make it even a little bit healthier.

My muffins turned out moist and flavorful. I decided against the orange cream cheese frosting, but it was mainly that I lacked the ingredients and I was too lazy to go to the store.

Pumpkin muffins

Makes about 14 muffins

Ingredients:
1 TBS butter (I might try cooking oil next time)
1 egg
3/4 cup + 2 TBS canned pumpkin
3/4 cup milk
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, egg, milk, sugar and pumpkin. In another bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Slowly mix the dry ingredients in with the wet till everything is combined. Add the raisins if you desire.

Spray a muffin tin with Pam. Pour batter into the pan, almost to the top of each.

Bake about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool on a rack.

Muffiny goodness!

By far my most successful cake to date. Modified from a recipe in Booze Cakes, a cookbook Rosey gave us for Christmas. Since I was making cake for two, I made a single layer round cake in a 10-inch pan. I bought a four-pack of inexpensive Californian Champagne, the tiny bottles, so I didn’t have to waste a whole bottle. The other bottles I saved for dinner.
The cake turned out really short, but I loved the look of it after I added the frosting. Since my frosting skills are terrible, I called up my sister-in-law and asked her to give me a frosting lesson. Lesson learned!

Ingredients:

Cake:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 stick of butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
2 drops red food coloring
1 cup Champagne

Frosting:
12 oz. cream cheese (like a brick and a half)
1/2 stick of butter
About a cup of powdered sugar
Fresh strawberries for decoration

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and butter cake pan and place parchment paper in the bottom. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter till light and fluffy, about four minutes. Add the egg whites one at a time. Mix in the food coloring.

Now add the flour in four parts and the champagne in three, alternating starting and ending with flour. This will prevent the batter from curdling. Pour batter into pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a knife pulls out clean when inserted into the center.

Let cool for about 30 minutes and remove cake from pan. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter till fluffy. Start adding the sugar and taste it once and a while till it’s to your liking.

Frost the cake Slice the strawberries and place them around the sides of the cake. Add a pretty strawberry design on top.