Apparently we’re quickly approaching November.  Wait… what!?  In the blink of an eye we’ll be eating turkey for Thanksgiving, wrapping holiday gifts, and kissing at midnight… that’s how fast this year is going!

What are we going to do about this? Is there some sort of pause button.

The only thing I can think do to do slow things down involves these healthy-ish Pumpkin Millet and Chocolate Muffins, a cup of milky tea, and Food and Wine Magazine.  Did you slow things down this weekend?  Was there pumpkin and chocolate, too?

This is real life.  Warm muffin.  Milk tea.  Food magazine.

I don’t slow down very often… I’m a terrible relaxer.  A short moment that looks like this?  Yea… it’s a nice and necessary recharge.

Ps.  You should totally know that I ate three muffins… not just the one pictured here.  Three.  They’re small.  No biggie.

Oh!  My little bit of downtime has given me all sorts of holiday pie ideas.  Get your pie tins out!  It’s going to get delicious here.

I love the simplicity of these muffins.  I think you will too.

No mixer necessary.  All you need is a few bowls, pureed pumpkin, and crunchy dry millet.

The millet adds a tender, healthful crunch to the muffins.  Like nuts… without being nuts.

The muffins are moist and pumpkin-y.  Perfect for the season.

Perfect perfect perfect with chocolate.

You have to balance out all of that whole wheat flour and millet with chocolate, right?

It’s all about balance.

Ps.  I’m so bad at balance… that has everything to do with the fact that I’m a terrible relaxer.

I must admit that this recipe is very similar to other recipes here at Joy the Baker.

I like pumpkin.  I like chocolate.  I like millet.

If you’ll recall, the Banana Millet Bread was pretty stellar, and these Soft Pumpkin Cookies are bonkers delicious.

Also… you can totally go vegan with this Vegan Pumpkin Walnut Bread.

Just lookin’ out for you!

Wanted:  Type A personal assistant.  Job duties will include:  reminding me what day it is, reminding me how many days I have left to write a cookbook, eating pancakes, and listening to me talk to myself as I grocery shop.

Wanted:  Dude dishwasher.

Wanted:  Courage… to get back on my bike again.

Wanted:  A sunny winter and a kitten for Christmas.

Wanted: Cakey doughnuts with none of the fuss and all of the glaze.

That one’s just too easy.  Done and done.

I have to be honest… this post is a sort of dog-ate-my-homework situation.

I took about forty pictures of the making of these little darlings, then I realized that I hadn’t put my memory card back in my camera.

Not ideal.  At all.

What makes a cake doughnut a cake doughnut?  Tender light cake crumb cooked in hot fry oil.

Can a doughnut still be a doughnut if it’s baked in the oven and shaped like a muffin.  Yea!  I think so!  What makes these doughnut muffins and not cupcakes is the glossy chocolate glaze.  They’re fluffy and light.  They’re springy. They’re not too sweet, and the chocolate glaze with sprinkles is pretty much perfect.

This might look like a pile of my unmentionables.  Wait… does anyone call underwear ‘unmentionables’ anymore?  

Well… they’re not my unmentionables.  They’re bathing suits.  Underwear that you wear in public.  Downright horrifying.  

I hate bikinis.  

But I still want to look like a babe in one.  Wait… does anyone ever feel like a babe in a bikini!?  Who are these women?  I bet their thighs don’t rub together…. that’s weird.  

My thighs rub together.  It’s because I love rice pudding.  Duh.  

So… anyway… I wanna feel like I look like a babe in a bikini.

It’s true.  It’s stupid.  It might be impossible.  Deal with it.   

This won’t help.  I know this with certainty.

This might help.  It’s green.  

Wait…. is there such thing as  Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Diet?  There should be.  Eat nothing but Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins and kale salads for seven days straight?  That’s sorta like a cleanse… right?  

Exactly.  I thought so.  I’m on it.

Let’s take a trip through the top drawer of  my dresser.  I have a point to make.

… we’re about to talk about underwear.  Can you handle it?

The top dresser drawer houses the following items:

- Cotton granny panties.  Summertime sleeping bras.  For private use only.  No exceptions.   Not to be seem by any eyes other than my own.

- Cute panties.  Pretty panties.  Lace panties.  Expensive bras with pink ribbon running through them.. all the sort that might inspire and invite a little scandal.  Yea… true.

Its like night and day in my underwear drawer… night and day.

This is normal, right?  We all have underwear standards.

I share this with you because I want you to know, right off the bat, that showing you these Sour Cream Molasses Bran Muffins is like giving you a peak at the granny panty portion of my top dresser drawer.

I just couldn’t glam up these muffins…. mostly because they’re not meant for glam.  They’re just meant to be cakey brown muffins… ok?

I’m not going to say any more about the underwear situation… I think it’s just making everyone uncomfortable.  You get my point.

Butter.  That’s what I love about these bran muffins.  You can taste the butter.

The muffins are made tender with sour cream and robust with molasses.  And.  Bonus!  They’re better after two or three days.  They actually taste better!

Be sure to add a handful of dried fruit.  Currants, dried cranberries, diced dried apricots, or golden raisins.  The muffins need the texture and sweetness.  Trust me.

In the event of some sort of big fat natural disaster in California, I may be up a creek without a paddle.  Sure, I’ve got the canned tuna, the emergency gallons of water and a few flashlights with dying batteries.  I’ve got the walking shoes, a space blanket and pepper spray… you need those things, right?   It’s just that I’m not sure the internets or my cellphone are going to do me much good in the event of a meltdown.  Won’t all the cell towers be jammed?  How am I going to reach out to my family?  I don’t think Twitter will quite do the trick.  Clearly my only option is to jog to them… in a space blanket.  That seems to make the most sense.

My parents?  I think they’re just ahead of me in the emergency game.  They’ve got cell phones from 1993 and a telephone land line.  At least the land line will come in handy.

My grandfather!?  He’ll fare better than all of us in an emergency.  He’s got Ham Radio.  Ham Radio is a sort of amateur radio system that allows people to talk to one another all over the world.  Don’t be fooled by the name.  Ham Radio is actually pretty badass.   Sort of like… trucker radio meets old school technology meets grandfather hobby.  In emergencies, Ham Radio is booming.  You better believe that in an emergency, my grandfather will be all over that radio.  Who he’ll be talking to?  I’m not exactly sure.  He’ll probably be saving the world.  I’ll be jogging my way to safety.  My parents will still be screening their phone calls with their answering machine.  Who is the hero?  Grandpa.

I tell you all of this because Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (specifically the giant ((seriously giant)) kind from Costco) are my grandfather’s favorite.  He no doubt has a 48 pack of those giant muffins in his emergency kit.  You think I’m kidding.  I’m not.

Note:  my descriptions of Ham Radio here may hinge on trite and are most certainly superficial and inadequate.

How many of these muffins did I eat Sunday morning?  What?  You weren’t counting.  Good.  I did count and it wasn’t pretty… I ate five of these muffins with extra glaze.  I had to.  I did.

These are simple muffins.  You know these muffins.  They’re no big surprise to you.  Lemon.  Buttermilk.  A little crunch from poppy seeds. Sugary lemon glaze.  It’s a beautiful thing.  If you’d like to freeze these beauties to enjoy all week, do so without the glaze.  Success.

Today’s Maple Pecan Muffins are dedicated to Tracey.

Tracey, you are dear and darling… and 15, which is equal parts hard and rad, I know.

Let me tell you a little about Tracey.  Tracey had her 15th birthday last week.  Tracey’s best friend Maggie sent me a pretty precious email asking me if I would send Tracey an autographed picture of myself for her birthday.  See,  Tracey is a great baker and a huuuuge fan of my site.

I’m not the sort to have pictures of myself to autograph on hand… that would be totally weird,  so I sent Tracey a little birthday gift and handwritten note.  Easy enough, right?   In return Tracey sent me a very long, very excited, exceedingly adorable email to thank me for her birthday present.  Seriously friends… this girl is priceless.

After reading Tracey’s email a handful of times (it was packed to the gills with information), here are a few things I want you to know about my new friend:

Tracey makes a mean lemon pound cake with blueberry sauce.

Tracey almost set her house ablaze trying to make these doughnuts.

Tracey is obsessed with muffins… and feeds them to her dog.  Let’s all just pretend like that’s normal.

Tracey got a “Tracey the Baker” apron for her birthday.  Clearly I have competition.

By sharing loads homemade cookies, Tracey is well on her way to becoming the most popular girl in school.  Don’t get too popular Tracey… it might be overrated.

Tracey giggles a lot… not in emails, but this is just something I’ve surmised from being 15 and eating a lot of sugar once upon a time.

Tracey?  Is that Jesus peeking over your shoulder on your fridge there?  If so… awesome.  If not… awkward.

Tracey these muffins are my little shout out to you because it seems like you get as excited about eggs and butter and sugar and flour as I do.  That makes me happy. Thank you.

Oooh Maple Pecan Muffins.  Holy smokes these muffins are good.

Here’s the trick with these muffins:  use real maple syrup.  Don’t even think about using the pancake syrup you might have hiding in your fridge.  No way friend-o!

These muffins are moist, sweet, drenched in maple flavor and just lovely for Autumn.  The pecans round out the sweetness and add just the right crunch.  Weekend breakfast?  Heck yes!  You win!

There are three things I want you to take away from this post.  No foolin’ around… I’ll get straight to the point.

One.  You’ll want to stop by tomorrow if you think you might like to be one of those people that attends my (holy heck yes!) summer party.  It’s in August.  It’s for real.

Two.  You know that part of the pedicure when the lady at your feet goes to it with a pumice scrub?  It’s at that point that I have to try with every ounce of who I am, not not not to kick her in the face.  I’m ticklish.  Extremely.  Now you know.

Three.  These blueberry muffins are (yes) perfect.  Straight forward.  Simple.  Summer.  One whole hell of a lot better than the stale coffee shop version… perfect. How often do I say something is perfect?  Not often.  Fact.

I woke up to an utterly dreamy California morning on Tuesday.  The soft morning sun was just streaming through my bedroom window, the birds were singing good morning, and I knew that I had a whole basket of clean laundry for the week ahead.  Pretty sweet morning, right?

Sure… the only problem was that my brain was entirely unwilling to join  the sunny spirit.  Nope.  I felt like on  big stale loaf of bread.  After an extended love affair with my snooze button, I determined, behind closed eyelids, that the only thing that would change my circumstance was streusel topping.  On the shuffle from my warm bed to the kitchen counter I decided that blueberry muffins with streusel topping would flip the light switch in my brain.

There was only one problem with my blueberry muffin plan.  I had not a blueberry in sight.  No fresh.  No frozen… just a whole lotta outta luck.  After rifling through my freezer and fridge I emerged with the tail end of a bag of frozen raspberries, and half a jar of strawberry jam.  I figured that, brought together under the welcoming umbrella of streusel topping, these two would simply have to work.  Not but thirty minutes later, puffy streusel topped muffins found their way out of the oven and into my face.  While they didn’t pay that pesky credit card bill, or make that much needed dentist appointment, they at least kept me from crawling back in bed for a handful of hours.  Sometimes, that kind of help is just enough.

It’s not every morning that you jump out of bed ready for the world, fully equipped to make blueberry muffins.  When those morning escape you, I promise that with a little jam, the remains of your frozen fruit collection, and loads of streusel topping, you just might be able to set things right.

I’d like to think of these muffins as Anything Muffins.  Really, whatever kind of berry and whatever kind of jam will do you just fine in this recipe.  If it sounds good to you, it’ll most likely taste good coming from your oven.  Don’t deny yourself a warm fruity muffin just because the blueberry escapes you.

There are moments in my life when I know that I’m a baker to the core.  I had one such moment today.  Why?  Well, I was thinking about cornbread all day.  Of all things!  Cornbread.  I was turning over cornbread formulas in my head, thinking of possibilities, researching recipes and jotting down notes.  That’s how I know I’m a baker, because I think about cornbread for hours on end.  And even if I were stuck in some random job as an accountant, I’d be the accountant that thought about cornbread all day.

It turns out that thinking about cornbread is like opening a can of worms.  There are so many styles! There’s the sweet style cornbread with sugar and honey.  There’s the dry unsweetened cornbread with fresh kernels mixed in.  There’s skillet corn bread.  There’s corn muffins.  I could go on and on… and I did, in my head, all day.  It had to be just right.  So I came up with Brown Butter Cornbread Muffins with Fresh Blueberries and Apricots.

Allow me a moment of self congratulation because frankly, I nailed it!

And now I’ll share.

While these muffins are simple in their ingredients, they pack the maximum amount of flavor.

Let’s start with the butter.  Browned butter brings out an almost nutty flavor in the butter.  That little bit of time over the fire adds a tremendous depth of flavor, and aroma.

Cornmeal is important too.  I chose a medium grain stone ground cornmeal.  The medium grind adds just a hint of crunch.  Brilliant!

Fruit was my summer addition to these muffins.  If you wanted to serve the muffins with chili or something savory then leave the berries out.  As a morning muffin, the fresh blueberries and diced apricot add an delicious touch.

Other delicious contributing factors-  sour cream and honey.  Sour cream gives the muffins a light tender crumb. Yes, more tender than buttermilk.  And honey adds a depth of flavor to the sweetness.

Now, these muffins aren’t over the top sweet.  If you like the your muffins on the sweeter side, increase the sugar from 1/4 cup to a heaping 1/3 cup.

I’m a sucker for treats warm out of the oven.  But really, who isn’t!?  One of my favorite things to burn my mouth on is muffins fresh out of the oven.  I thought I’d treat myself to some classic blueberry muffins, but when I saw frozen black raspberries in the grocery store, classic blueberry went right out the window.  The raspberries add loads of flavor and tons of sexy purple black coloring.  These muffins are perfect, fresh out of the oven for a weekend breakfast, and then freeze well for a mid week breakfast treat.  And I sure do like my breakfast treats.  I can’t help myself.

Try these muffins with any berry, fresh or frozen.  Well… hold back on the frozen strawberries.  They’re too big.  But blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or any combination you think is festive and inviting.  Go nuts and show off your muffin stylings!