Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

As I outlined in this post, I have been away for too long and am extremely sorry about it. Back to the deliciousness! Ahem. My baby sister left for college today. She's truly truly amazing and beginning her sophmore year. School for her is about 2 hours from me so, way less hang out time during the school year as opposed to the breaks which is always hard to handle. Luckily, 2 hours is a great weekend road trip and breaks are frequent and fun.

In any case, I had grand intentions to make her these muffins in time but I didn't make the deadline what with the other happenings. They are a favorite of hers and she is a favorite of mine so, looks like I will be making a care package! 

I previously posted this recipe here, but that was for green beer day which means I dyed the muffins themselves green. Here you can see them in their true form, a nice white crumb, a thick cinnamon sugar crunch on the outside.

The Best Banana Bread Recipe

"Are we going to eat these disgusting bananas or are we saving them as some kind of experiment?" asks Esquire in disgust.

Honestly, how many times do you have to tell men "when bananas go black, I make you delicious baked goods" before they remember to stop complaining about the yellow-to-black-banana process happening on the counter? Esquire always seems to be genuinely confused as to why I am not throwing away rotten fruit and then genuinely happy to hear that Banana Bread/Oatmeal Cups/Cookies/Cream Pie is in his future. My dad has done the same thing to my mom for as long as I can remember. "Is there a reason we are keeping these shriveled bananas?" Yes, guys. This isn't news. This is what you do with bananas.

Unless you have toddlers. Then you also buy bananas to serve whilst yellow.

Anyway- after assuring my confused law husband that I was keeping them for a very delicious purpose, I whipped up some banana bread.

My family's banana bread to be exact. Arguably the best banana bread recipe there ever was. I am a bit of a banana bread snob actually, entirely due to the fact that I was raised on this bread.

Presenting Pretzels!

Hello, cooking world! First of all, whoever said married life was boring was lying. I feel like the whirlwind from the wedding is just now (almost two months later) starting to die down. I’ve been trying to keep the blog breathing through my comics page updates but now that my life is more organized and I have located my camera’s memory card/been able to take pics of my latest kitchen creations, the real updates can resume.

Food. Yum. Food posts. It is really all about food so, let’s get into it.

Bacon & Egg Cupcakes & Newness!

Yep. You're seeing right.

That is bacon. Lots and lots of bacon on some EXTRAORDINARILY yummy cupcakes!! What you are seeing there, ladies and gentlemen, is a peanut butter cupcake topped with a brown sugar and maple icing, candied maple bacon, and a Cadbury cream egg. 


I mean... come on.


As many of you know, this post was supposed to be my Easter recipe post. However, Blogger had a HUGE rebellion against me and refused to upload anything at all. 


It was completely and totally uncool. Just saying.


Eventually, with lots of muttering and effort, this page was working again and could even upload things! However, my other page appeared to be down for the count, no matter what I did. I found myself faced with three options. 
1) Stop writing stupid comics.
2) Start a new page for the stupid comics.
3) Make one huge epic blog that had both recipes and my stupid comics.


Clearly, as this page has had a devastating overhaul and has a LOT more content now, I went with the monster blog of awesome! Or at least, I think it turned out pretty awesome. Which brings us to the newness. You can now find a blend of all updates- recipes, comics, crafts, photos, etc., here on this one site, under the "Home" tab! You can then also find everything mentioned AND all the rest organized in their respective tabs, (e.g. All Recipes, All Comics, All Crafts). 


For those of you just here for the food, DO NOT WORRY! This site will still be dominated by recipes. Like the Bacon and Egg Cupcakes I promise I am getting to!

Dear Gosh, so delicious. 

I just also felt I should address the change so no one just coming in here got confused by all this. There is kind of a lot happening in one web-space now but, I think if we all just see where it goes/how this works, it'll all be fine. 

That's the hope at least! And now, onto the recipe I am sure you are all now dying for. "Bacon and Egg" Cupcakes were an outstanding dessert. This was my first attempt at making a dessert with Bacon and the results were AMAZING!

People were raving about these cupcakes. I was flattered and blushing with the things people were saying about these lil devils. I even got a marriage proposal after someone took a bite. 

Clearly, you need to make these right now. Bacon Cupcakes. Plus, they look so adorable with the little Cadbury eggs settled into bacon nests.

Make and enjoy :)

Bacon & Eggs Cupcakes
*Originally seen Here! At Crazy, Sexy, Delicious. Their cupcakes are more legit*


Make your cake:
- 1 yellow cake mix, prepared according to directions 
+ 3/4 cup peanut butter


Bake and allow to cool completely. Should be fluffy and peanut buttery. 


Make your brown sugar mixture, a main component of the rest of the cupcake (1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tablespoon white sugar). 


Prep your icing:
- 1 can vanilla icing (I wanted to used can because it is SO sweet and would be the sugar to the bacon but, you can obviously make your own vanilla icing)
+ 1/4 cup maple syrup
+ 1 tbsp "brown sugar mix"


Stir, should be slightly runny but still hold shape. The little sugar granules will add charm, promise. Don't try and smooth them out, you'll just hurt yourself.


Time for the bacon!
- 2 boxes "ready cooked" bacon
- 1/4 cup syrup
-Remaining brown sugar mixture.


Cut the bacon up with a scissors, put into a large mixing bowl. Pour on syrup,  stir to coat. Add 80% or so of the brown sugar mix, stir to coat. Lay parchment paper down on a baking sheet. My oven was at 400, I am not sure if there is a better temp or way to do this as I made all of this up but, put your sugared bacon in the oven and let it cook until it seems caramelized/sizzles some but isn't burning. Remove and sprinkle with that final 20% of sugar mix. Allow it to cool completely! Should be slightly chewy/sticky from the caramelized syrup.


Ice your cupcakes and use the bacon to make nests. Settle mini Cadbury cream eggs into bacon nests (should make 24 cupcakes so, you'll need 2 mini cartons). Serve to your skeptical friends! I'm sure it will be a hit :)

Featured On:

Bacon & Egg Cupcakes!! 

1st Daring Bakers Challenge: Coffee Cake

Although I have been a member for a very, very long time and been kicked out twice, I was determined to make this membership to "The Daring Bakers" stick. If you don't know what the Daring Bakers is, you should check it out here. So, when I missed two months in a row and therefore was almost kicked out since this would have been month 3 of missing, I knew I had to make this month's challenge happen before March's close. 

Well. Here we go. One day left, hopefully none too late. This month's challenge was a yeast coffee cake which involved the fun processes of kneading and rising and staring at dough for long periods of time. And then making a meringue filling which was all this fabulous whipping and fun times. 

Look how lovely that meringue becomes all spread out. I sprinkled it with cinnamon and chocolate chips  for good measure. Some slivered almonds too.

That corner needs more chips...

Much better.

Once they baked, they became truly beautiful. Which is why I took so many photos of their beautiful, melt in your mouth, ohmygosh, glory. It seemed necessary. Something this divine needed a lot of documentation. Also, in case you were wondering, the reason the one is cut into is because my roommate and I had to eat it while it was hot from the oven. All molten and amazing. No regrets, whatsoever. 

Seriously. If every month yields such DELICIOUS results, I am never missing again. This blew me away and I now need to make as many variations imaginable. Best. Coffee. Cake. Ever. The recipe below is the one from the challenge, I didn't mess with it at all, and I challenge all of you to try it as well. Let me know what you think!

This is copied exactly from the DB challenge form. I am still a new member, hope that's allowed. I made a slightly changed "Jamie's Version". Loved it! All of you need to do this. Seriously. Now. GO bake now!

:) Enjoy kiddos.

Valentines "Date" Nut Bread & Sweet Cream Cheese Spread

Get it?! "Date" nut bread? Like on a date? Or going on dates? Or the fruit, dates?! It's applicable for valentines day because, it's got date in the title and is a super comfort food that single people of the world would rather have then any frilly chocolates anyway. So there!


Hah, this is my 100th post on Clutzy Cooking! Clearly, off to a great start there with my crazy coming full out. 

Anyway. This recipe was adored by my Grandpa Moylan. My dad is also rather obsessed with this recipe and, when my grandpa passed away and my family stopped making it, he waited for the years to pass until he thought it'd be "okay" for him to ask for my mom to make it for him.

Eventually, this bread became legend. This infamously delicious, dense, bread that we USED to have but, that passed away with my grandfather, never to be seen again.

Once it became legendary, we couldn't make it for him. It was too big of a deal! Too much pressure. If you made it and it wasn't as he remembered it, now a decade later, it would probably fall short of the infamous recipe he recalled.

Then last Thanksgiving, my Aunt Maureen made a batch and brought it to our house for the holiday. My dad lit up like a Christmas tree and had slice after slice. It was apparently all he remembered and more.

So! I had to make it myself. It's rather intricate but, it's simple flavors are a hit with everyone who tries it. Well worth the effort. You can make anyone who claims to hate dates a HUGE fan.

FYI: This is an extremely moist, dense bread, and I think I always end up cooking it a bit longer than I thought I would. As I mentioned, there are a lot of steps, but they are necessary evils for this to come out perfectly.

Plus, it's still a cinch. Make and enjoy! And once again, Happy Valentines :)

Grandma's date nut bread:

8 oz package chopped dates

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 cups boiling water

Pour boiling water over the dates and soda, then let it cool.

In the meantime, mix:

2 cups sugar

1 tsp melted butter

1 beaten egg

ADD the dates and the water to the mixture.

Mix :

2 1/4 cups flour

and 1 tsp of salt

ADD to the rest.

Then add:

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup of nuts (I use walnuts)

Pour into well greased loaf pan. Let stand 20 minutes before baking.

Bake at 350 degrees 60 to 70 minutes till done. Check with toothpick

Small pan loaves work great with this, cook for 35 to 40 minutes.

Cool completely before removing from pan.

*BONUS RECIPE!* Sweet Cream Cheese Spread:

This doesn't even really count as a recipe, it's just a spread we like to make for date nut, pumpkin, and zucchini bread at my house.

Seen above smeared on the slices of date nut bread.

-1 package cream cheese

-1/3 c powdered sugar

Whip together til smooth.

Super Bowl Chili & Cornbread

Seeing as our super bowl party ran pretty late last night, I am more then scrambling to get this posted today. 

Whoops! 

Anyway, the Super Bowl is a time for chili and corn bread with my family. We raise buffalo too so, we always make it a point to serve up buffalo chili. Always a fantastic, yearly treat. It is a ritual I was not inclined to miss just because I now live 14 hours away. My roommate and I had a bunch of people over and made a BUNCH of food. The center of which were the chili and cornbread casserole. I also made spinach corn muffins, which are always a smash, but I wanted to make some of the yummy, spoon served, corn casserole as well. 

If we're going to have buttery, delicious carbs, we are going to do it right. I also made some appetizers, including my family's infamous sausage appetizers and my roomie's favorite cheesey spreads. 

While the chili was the star of the show, it was almost entirely out done by my desserts. Which I will have to post later in order to do them proper justice. However, as a preview for the post that I will add later this week, here are some pics of the dessert tables and two of my favorites. The theme for the the desserts was "Super BOWL", and they therefore all have cereal as a main ingredient. Can't wait to share! Enjoy the chili and cornbread recipe in the mean time!!

More pics and recipes to follow! Happy Super Bowl, all :)

Bison Chili:

-          2 teaspoons butter or margarine

-          3 lbs bison. My fam makes 1 ½ lbs ground bison, 1 ½ lbs diced chuck, cut into ½ inch pieces

-          1 lg onion, diced

-          1 lg green pepper, diced

-          1 garlic clove, crushed

-          5 tbls chili powder

-          2 bay leaves

-          2 tsp each oregano and sugar

-          1 tsp each cumin and salt

-          ½ tsp freshly ground pepper

-          1 can (14 ½ or 16 oz) stewed tomatoes

-          1 can (13 or 14 oz) beef broth

-          1 can (16 oz) red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

-          1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce

-          1 cup water

-          1 tbls cornmeal

In dutch oven, melt butter or margarine over high heat. Add meat and brown. Drain excess fat. Stir in onion, green pepper, and garlic; sauté until brown. Drain excess fat. Stir in onion, pepper, and garlic until veggies are softened, approx 4 mins. Stir in spices, cook about 2 mins. Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour. Simmer uncovered 1 to 1 ½ hours more. Discard garlic and bay leaves.


Chili is one of those recipes that always seems to be different every time you make it. This recipe is the best and, I always try to stick to it as much as possible. Making it for the Super Bowl this year was a train wreck on my part when I put in too much chili powder by mistake and then was desperately trying to cut the spice level down to manageable amounts with whatever I had on hand. Everything but the kitchen sink ended up in this batch, ha. Everyone seemed to love it, even adoring the extra spice! But, if you want a good recipe to start with as a base for your experiments in chili making- this should be it.


Serve with sour cream, cheese, noodles, ect. Or with corn bread casserole! See below.

Corn Bread Casserole:

-          1 box jiffy cornbread mix

-          1 egg

-          ½ stick butter/marg, softened

-          1 can cream corn

-          1 can regular corn, drained

-          8 oz sour cream

Combine all ingredients and pour into a 2 qt casserole dish. I even mix mine in the dish more often then not to save a dirty dish. Bake at 350 for 50 mins. Serve by the warm, delicious, gooey spoonful :)

Cinnamon Donut Crunch Cake

Cinnamon Toast Crunch- Cinnamon Cavity Cake

Dessert 3/5 of the "Super Bowl Cereal Challenge"

This is a cinnamon toast crunch cake that is so sweet and delicious it's cavity inducing. Or, I just said that so I could reference the video David at the Dentist. Either way! I got this recipe from this lovely food blog but, adapted it to make it cereal friendly. And I used nutmeg instead of ginger so it tasted like a cinnamon donut. Yummmm.

Cavity Cinnamon Cake

-2 1/2 cups flour
-1 cup brown sugar
-3/4 cup granulated sugar
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
-3/4 cup Canola oil
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 egg
-1 cup buttermilk

-3 cups gently crushed cinnamon toast crunch cereal

Mix together 2 1/4 cups flour, white and brown sugars, 1 tsp cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Blend in oil until well combined. Remove 3/4 cup of mixture and set aside. To remaining flour mix add baking soda, baking powder, egg and buttermilk. Blend until smooth. Pour into greased 13×9″ pan. To 3/4 cup reserved mix, add 1/4 cup flour and 1 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle over batter. Sprinkle cereal on batter/crumb topping as well and bake in a 13 by 9 at 350 (F) oven for 35-40 minutes.

S'more Brownies = S'mownies

Okay, to be honest, I didn't make these brownies myself.

I've been traveling a lot for work lately. A lot. I was at my place in DC last weekend and won't be back there again until shortly before New Years. For the 2 days I was home, my roomie and I decided to have our pals over so I could see them all before the holidays. We ate a lot, watched Christmas movies.

So, anyway. I didn't make these. I tossed the ingredients on the kitchen counter and set my roommate up with a bowl and asked her to, (pretty please with sugar on top), make these festive brownies for our friends.

Luckily, my roommate is a good sport so, even though the flavor combination and concept seemed flawed, she did as I asked and made these lovely brownies.

Yummmm- look at the toasted marshmallow top. Fabulous.


The basic premise of these treats is creating a basic spin on the s'more. Chocolate, marshmallow, graham crackers. I bought the red and green marshmallows for our holiday party but, next time I think I'll go with the ordinary confections.

For those who are curious, I wasn't baking them myself because I was cleaning and tweaking like a crazy person. Plus I was unpacking, repacking, and trying to scrub every surface within reach at the same time. My roommate was being extremely patient, watching all this and also allowing me to be OCD and arrange, rearrange, and replace to it's original place again without saying a word. While she was baking for me in the kitchen, I was arranging the rest of the food made and gathered on our big Christmas trays.


See? Arranged. I love those napkins, by the by.

Anyway! So, most of those cookies are all store bought. I'll make/post my family's traditional cookies soon- once I have time again and am not being a crazy person.

However, just a small note: the pretzel rods shown are dipped in White Chocolate and rolled in crushed candy canes. Simple and delicious.

Hope you guys have more time then I do. And are having your own fabulous holiday soirees :)

S'mownies
-1 box brownie mix & all the ingredients the box requires
-1 bag miniature marshmallows
-1 box graham crackers.

Make the boxed brownies according to the directions. Grease 9 by 13 pan, line with graham crackers. Pour brownie mix over the top, bake according to box directions or until a tooth pick comes out clean when tested, (approx 25 mins @ 350). Remove from oven, top with marshmallows, spread evenly across the top. Turn oven up to "broil" setting, and "toast" the marshmallow topped treats until golden. It won't take longer then 2 mins so, really, do not walk/look away.

Enjoy & Merry Christmas :)

Beer Bread. Bread with Beer Baked Into It.

Okay, so. We are taking a step back from the ultra geeky and ultra sweet desserts and moving on to something simple, savory, and oh my, so delicious.

I actually made this some time ago and simply haven't posted the recipe until now but! Here you go kids, share and enjoy :)

I had seen this recipe and had decided I wanted to make it but, had never really dealt with this kind of a bread before. Short of the random yeast bread, I usually stick to cake like doughs, going for the sweets like pumpkin and banana.

Yummmmmm, pumpkin bread. Hope that makes an appearance this Thursday!!!

In any case, this bread (as you can see) lacks yeast but, doesn't lack from it. I drizzled mine with butter and then topped it with herbs for good measure and then a big dash of salt.

Buttery flavors + salty flavors + distinct beer flavors + yummy delicious herbs...

I may stink at math but, that all adds up exceptionally well in my kitchen!!!

Enjoy :)


Beer Bread

Ingredients:

-3 cups flour

-3 teaspoons baking powder

-1 1/2 teaspoon salt

-3 tablespoons granulated sugar

-One 12-oz can of beer

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease your bread pan- I used a lot of butter to give my bread that buttery outside. Combine all your ingredients, mix it as best you can! And then pour into the loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

Once I had poured mine into the pan, I added a bunch of herbs and some extra salt to the top of mine along with some melted butter. Basil, rosemary, garlic to name the biggies. Garlic is emphasized for a reason, yes. It was DELICIOUS with the beer. Go plain or add herbs of your choice- this recipe is simple enough either way and can hold its own.

Piña Colada Cupcakes: SMILE ANGELA!

These cupcakes make me super the happy. They are just so darn cute!

And look how fancy toasted coconut is! One would never know that it's easy.

Well, it seems to be easy. I broiled it. Which, was probably wrong. I imagine there is a process, if someone would tell me what it is, I would love to know what that process is! All I did though was broil the coconut on a cookie sheet, a few minutes and then flipping the coconut over some, then another few minutes, until all of it became a lovely toasty brown.

The edges of my cookie sheet got blackened. Which, indicates I did SOMETHING wrong. But, since the majority of the batch was lovely and looked lovely on the cupcakes, I don't really care.

There is this spectacular cake served at Tommy Bahama Cafe's called The Pina Colada Cake. Whenever my family goes to California in order to visit my spectacular grandparents, we always make it to Tommy's once or twice. Coincidentally, we always get this cake because it is perhaps my all time favorite dessert and everyone else also tends to rave about it.

Smooth, light, coconut cream with pineapple whipped in, layered between thin fluffy cake layers, all coated in toasted cocunut.

I mean. That even reads as delicious.

So, craving that cake, I decided to make these cupcakes to try and satisfy. And it worked.

Make these and be equally charmed by the lightness of coconut and pineapple.

(And yes, if you recognize the tropical cake topping I use, it's from my summer citrus cake. Which is also spectacular and another favorite of which I can never get enough but! These have coconut. That ups the ante.)

Pina Colada Cupcakes

-1 prepared white cake mix 

-3 teaspoons coconut extract

-1 pckg vanilla instant pudding

-1 can (20 oz)  crushed pineapple *(all I had on hand was an 8 oz can which was less pineapple then I think I would have liked but the frosting also held its shape rather nicely and I'm not sure how that would differ with more liquids. So, pick your poison with that choice.)

-1 tub whipped topping, thawed

-1 pckg shredded coconut

Make your cake mix according to package, adding the 3 tsp coconut extract. Bake as directed for cupcakes, allow to cool completely. Lay shredded coconut out on a cookie sheet and toast til golden in oven.

Mix remaining ingredients together and layer HEAVILY onto the cupcakes. Top with toasted coconut. Admire and enjoy :)