little miss muffin

We surround ourselves with people who compliment us.  Of course we aren’t going to hang out with someone who constantly tells us how fat we are or how bad we look.  The other compliment.  Their skills and traits are a good balance for our skills.

I am the cook.  I am not the baker.  I have friends who bake.  I don’t like to measure.  Cooking is throwing a bit of this and bit of that into a pot and whammo- you’ve got gold!

I work with a great organization called Rebuilding Together that does home repair for low income elderly and disabled.  There are things going on throughout the year, but on the last Saturday of April every year there are roughly 50 houses being worked on.  that is 50 houses just in Portland alone.  This is going on across the country.

Each year, I solicit coffee and pastry donations from Starbucks.  This year, I decided I’m going to make pastries.  This is a huge endeavor for one unskilled as myself.  I figure if I bake 1 or 2 different muffin or scones a week for the next 3 weeks, then I’ll be set.  Throw them in the freezer and pull them out the day before.  (dirty little secret- that’s what your local bakery does for starbuck’s, so why can’t I?)

Tonight after doing a few chores and having a cocktail, I made Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins.  Thanks to google and the blogosphere I had a few good places to start.  I follow a lot of foodie folks and thanks to Annie’s Eats, I’m off to a good start.

I mostly followed the recipe.  Really no variations or strays I feel worth mentioning. I figured since I don’t want to kill my volunteers, I wouldn’t experiment too much.  I don’t want to brag, but I don’t think I messed this one up too badly.  We’ll see what the troops have to say on the big day.