Baking Buddies

My best friend Emily was in town from Thailand on a six week break from teaching, and while she was staying with me, we spent as much time as possible doing all kinds of goofy things that were at least vaguely reminiscent of our craziest younger years. Like digging into a chocolate cake with our forks without ever cutting pieces and trying to meet in the middle. And watching a lot of movies and giggling. And driving around getting lost late at night because apparently living most of our lives in Albuquerque has taught us nothing about where anything is. We also used to have some good old times baking cookies etc. 

The first time we ever tried to bake together, we got in a fight - Emily didn't follow the recipe and just kind of guesstimated at amounts. I had never used a Kitchen-Aid mixer before, and I happened to break off a wooden spoon and mix the pieces into the dough because I didn't know how powerful it would be. We ended up mad at each other, but cookies brought us back together, as they always do. So Emily and I decided to try baking again, and were determined not to fight. We got together all the ingredients for a delicious recipe of raspberry-lemon muffins, and set to work using my very own Kitchen-Aid (thanks again to my awesome father in law for the Valentines Day present! I love it!) 

Anyway, towards the end of the mixing (during which we splattered muffin batter all over the kitchen) I stopped the motor and tried to stir it up a little by hand using a rubber spatula thing. And guess what? IT BROKE! If you look closely, you will see the end of my spatula in the batter. 

So anyway, we laughed a lot because it was so much like when we were younger. And we decided to take some pictures. And thus this post was born. Here's me showing off the handle of my broken spatula,

Emily holding the beautiful and very very delicious muffins after they baked,

pretty and yummy muffins,

and Phillip, demonstrating how incredibly delicious they are. We are great bakers, let me tell you.

See? A very happy man. 

Oh, you want the recipe, do you? Of course you do. They were delicious, easy, and completely consumed within a very short period thanks to a fun family day trip to Santa Fe. 

Raspberry Lemon Muffins (from a MOPS cookbook)

2 c. flour, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 tsp. baking powers, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs, 1 (8-oz) c. lemon yogurt, 1/2 margarine, 1 tsp. grated lemon peel, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 and 1/2 c. fresh or frozen raspberries.

Mix dry ingredients and set aside. Combine and whip wet ingredients. Fold liquids into dry mixture until just moistened. Add raspberries gently. Fill muffin cups full. Bake at 400* for 18-20 minutes. Yields 12.

We actually doubled the recipe. We used butter instead of margarine and frozen raspberries. We weren't all that gentle on the raspberries, either. But they turned out great. I think they would be awesome if you dusted the tops with sugar to make them a little fancier. So go forth and prosper and make these muffins. As it is written, so it shall be done.