Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

There's a recipe at the bottom of this page.

I'm continually picking up cupcake books, and leafing through them in bookstores, and bringing them in at the library. I'm not sure what I'm looking for, something new, and so intriguing, that I just have to make it, I guess. I'm generally disappointed. Usually cupcake books, are full of plain old cupcakes, with a lot of fancy frosting ideas, that would be either too difficult for anyone outside of Martha Stewart's test kitchen to try, or too messy to eat if they actually did.

Even so, I always have high hopes, for the next cupcake book I see, as I did when I put a hold on Cupcakes, Cupcakes, & more Cupcakes! by Lilach German, at the library. The pictures on the cover, certainly looked promising. And to my joy, I found a few cupcakes, that even looked like something I might like to eat, and could make myself...Oreo cupcakes, banana chocolate cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes...and peanut butter and jelly cupcakes.

I kept returning the peanut butter and jelly recipe page. I couldn't quite decide if I was intrigued, or revolted. I showed it to the children, and received one raised eyebrow, one "disgusting", and one thoughtful glance. The little ones, wanted to know when I would be making lunch, and didn't care about cupcakes.

Finally, I decided I would just have to make them. You can sort of see the result in the pictures to the side and below (we're socked in with snow this week, so it's like photographing in a cave). They don't really do justice to the book, not just because of my meager photography skills, but because I left the milk out of the recipe. I even thought about how strange it was that the recipe didn't call for milk, as I was making the dough. It wasn't until later, when I was contemplating the frosting, that I realized the recipe did indeed, call for 1/2 cup of milk.

The omission doesn't seem to have hurt them too much though, they were still quite edible. In fact, I'm eating one as I'm typing this. I won't go so far as to say I love them, but they're interesting. They taste like a cross between a peanut butter cookie, and a blueberry muffin. But, the aftertaste they leave, is exactly like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I didn't frost them, because peanut butter frosting with blop of jelly in the middle, struck me as over the top. And, to my eyes, they are muffins, and you don't frost muffins (do you?). The recipe is actually very similar to the "Best Ever " recipe I've been using for years, to make breakfast muffins for the children. I'll share it with you at the bottom of this post, because if you add 5 tablespoons of peanut butter, and two tablespoons of your favorite jam or jelly to it, you'd be pretty close to the muffin I'm eating right now.

I'm not sure where my recipe originally came from, I thought it was from my Betty Crocker Cookbook, but after searching through it, and checking the Betty Crocker website, I don't see it. I did however see a number of other intriguing, and must-try muffin recipes. Apparently, that's been my problem with all the cupcake books all along - I've been looking for muffins.

Best Ever Muffins

• 2 cups flour
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1/4 cup oil
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1 cup of just about anything you like...berries, chocolate chips, pumpkin (then you might want to add a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice too), etc. OR 5 tablespoons of peanut butter, and 2 tablespoons of your favorite jam, for peanut butter and jelly muffins.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl. Stir in the wet ingredients, just until everything is moist. Add the final cup of whatever.

Fill greased muffin cups 1/2 full to 3/4 full, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, for 25 minutes.

It's great to be a homeschooler.