Winter Wonderland Cupcake Muffins

Lately I have been hearing about a lot of decadent treats. Mainly dough balls. Then to make matters worse (or better) my friend Lee (who just started her very own blog!) brought me some delish dense Cranberry Banana Bread when we went out to coffee. I realized it was time to make myself a another sweet bread, my carb cravings were not done quite yet, but little did I know how much they would increase.

I worked an overnight shift and dreamed of cooking dough balls, sweet apple bread, and rich creamy pumpkin breads. I had it all planned out, I was going to make an emergency trip to the grocery store to refill my baking supplies.

Then this happened.

This is 6 am.   I thought by the time I woke up after a post graveyard shift nap it would have all melted into a nice slush, typical of Minnesota winter.

Was I ever wrong.   I woke up to quite the winter wonderland. I really really lied yesterday when I said I had eaten my fill of carbs for the week.  My carb cravings tripled after seeing this.

But my plans to make a trip to the grocery store were NOT going to happen. The 16 bus in this weather? No thank you. The bus is sketchy enough in good weather, I can only imagine the terror of riding the bus on slush filled streets.

So I made do.  I got up, made a huge pot of coffe, some scrambled eggs, and of course started blasting my Christmas playlist.  The first snow is definitely something to be celebrated...indoors that is.

After a peaceful breakfast surrounded by falling snowflakes (and the sounds of whipping winds, thankfully I was tucked away safely inside and my cheeks have not suffered any windburn yet) I got to work.  I opened the cupboards and decided to make some cupcakes with what I had on hand.  Like a real low impact college student.

Ohh boy am I glad that I did. Decadent results. I couldn't have done better with all the ingredients for baking in the world.

Winter Wonderland Cupcake Muffins

Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt (heaping)
1/4 c strawberry yogurt (I used Activia from the roomie but any yogurt flavor would work)
1/4 cup + 1T almond milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking powder
4 T packed brown Sugar
3 T semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg


Winter Spiced Frosting

Ingredients:
1/4 Cup powdered sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 Tbsp almond milk
1/8-1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the Winter Wonderland Cupcake Muffin ingredients in small bowl.  Be careful not to over mix.   If mixture is too dry add almond milk 1 tsp at a time until desired consistency is achieved, mine were  the consistency of a thick pancake batter.  Grease 5 muffin spots in a muffin tin or use cupcake liners.  Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full.  Should fill about 4-5 muffin cups.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.  Let cupcake muffins cool.

Mix ingredients for Winter Spiced Frosting, adding more milk if too the consistency is too thick, or more powdered sugar if too thin.  My frosting was pretty runny, which was perfect because it ran down the sides of the cupcake muffins when unwrapped.  Drizzle the frosting on top of freshly baked still warm cupcake muffins to make an ooey gooey hot delicious mess.  Gobble them up while still warm.

Pump up the volume on the Christmas music, grab a good book and a hot mug of coffee and dig in.

I made 5 cupcakes, one for each of my roommates. But this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to make a more substantial amount of cupcake muffins.

These are definitely helping take the edge of the winter chill my apartment has acquired this morning. My roommates are pretty loving at the moment too, just warming up my heart.

If you're looking for a slightly sweet, but still substantial cupcake like muffin to warm you up on a chilly day get to work in your kitchen.  This recipe can easily be modified to inclue nuts or dried fruit.  Take out some of the sugar if you want a "breadier" muffin.  Or use all purpose flour if you want more of a cupcake.  Or just leave it be and have a great mix of the two!

Not going to lie I am loving the sights of this fresh snowfall.  There is something so gorgeous about the first snowfall.  The branches were getting a little bare and sad anyways.  But at the same time I am not looking forward to my walk to the ceramics studio this afternoon...I may have to skip it and make some more treats instead ;)

What's the weather like where you are at the moment? Is it still fall?  Or did fall suddenly vanish overnight like here in Minnesota? (seriously I can still see yellow and red leaves peeking out under the snow covered branches! Talk about bipolar weather!)