Say it with Sprinkles: A baking blog filled with recipes & photos of sweet treats & savory eats.

I’m not one of those people who are heavily into the semantics of muffins vs. cupcakes and the like.  I mean, I’ve heard some swear you can’t have a muffin with a cupcake paper, and others that you can’t have a cupcake without.  Sure, cupcakes are well, to state the very overly obvious, CAKE…clearly not to be eaten for breakfast…right?

But then what about the chocolatey, cakey-sweet, sugar crumb topping-smattered “cupcakes” parading around under the guise of the muffin moniker?  I know better.  We ALL know better.  So can we please just call the portable, little cupcake/muffins whatever we dang well want once we pop them out of those cupcake/muffin tins, wrappered, frosted, dessert or breakfast bound?  I’m sure there are other specifics involved, like texture, crackly vs. smooth top, etc., but when it comes down to it, I’ll call it a cupcake if I plan to frost it.  I’ll call it a muffin if I plan to eat it for breakfast, especially if it has “mocha” in its description – that’s definitely breakfast.  Maybe I’d skip the frosting in that case, and then call it a cupcake when I pile on the lightly banana-y buttercream frosting.

Life is so much more versatile when you let a muffin be a cupcake every now and then or bake a cupcake without the paper, right!

Mocha Banana Bread Cupcake Recipe

More chocolatey than coffee flavored, these little gems are more muffin-like in the way the tops puff and crack slightly, but more cupcake-esque in texture.  I highly recommend frosting, but you absolutely don’t HAVE to.  But you should!

Ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup non-dairy margarine

1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium-sized)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 Tbsp instant coffee granules

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*F.  Grease or line wells of a standard size muffin tin.

Cream together the margarine and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.   Add in the vanilla extract and the eggs, beating between additions.  Beat in the bananas until mixed well.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.  Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, mixing between additions.  Add in the coffee granules and mix until incorporated.

Scoop batter into muffin tins until almost full.  Bake about 15-18 minutes depending on your oven, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool before frosting.  While cooling, make the frosting.

Hint-of-Banana Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

2 sticks non-dairy margarine (1 cup)

1 yellow banana, pureed

5 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixture until smooth and fluffy.

Add in the pureed banana and vanilla and beat again until smooth.  Add in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach desired thickness.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

I’m not trying to steal any mocha banana bread cupcake thunder here, but keep an eye out for what might very well be the most amazing carrot cake recipe ever.  It’s also vegan.  And gluten free.  No biggie.  It’s coming up soon!

Enjoy your weekend!  I have some Santa Monica beach time to look forward to! <3

I’ve been moving non-stop the last couple days! Definitely busier today than I have been since finals ended a little over a week ago. Semi-last minute shopping, cleaning, packing, wrapping presents, and lots of baking. I spent a good 5 hours on Saturday knee-deep in flour, brown sugar, and various other baked good accoutrements, trying to make sure I can get a few gits shipped out on Monday! Nothing like hoping for the best in terms of the US Postal Service delivering before Christmas! 😉

In the midst of it all, I managed to carve out just enough time to whip up a few festive-flavored muffins. These puppies have Christmas morning written all over them! They come together quickly and the best part of all is they make your kitchen smell like fresh ginger snaps. Opening presents tree-side with the fragrance of sugary ginger pear wafting through the air? Mmhmm, magical!

Candied Ginger & Pear Gingerbread Muffins

Ingredients:

Dry-
* 1 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour
* 3/4 Cup Whole wheat flour
* 1/2 tsp Salt
* 1/2 tsp Baking soda
* 1 1/2 Tbsp Ground ginger

Wet-
* 1/4 Cup Butter (1/2 stick, 2 oz.)
* 1/3 Cup Molasses
* 1 Cup Milk (I used regular, non-dairy would probably work, too!)
* 2 Eggs
* 1/2 Cup Brown sugar, packed

Add-ins-
* 1/2 Cup candied ginger, roughly chopped
* 1 pear, roughly chopped
* A few Tbsp Turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400*F. Grease or line a jumbo muffin tin with muffin cups.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter with the molasses. Set aside to cool.

Sift together the flours, baking soda, salt, and ground ginger in a separate bowl. Stir in the brown sugar.

Once the butter and molasses mixture have cooled, make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour it in. Slightly beat the eggs, and pour them in. Add the milk, the chopped candied ginger and pear, and stir everything together until just moistened. Don’t over mix!

Spoon the batter in to the muffin tin, filling each cup almost to the top. Sprinkle tops with turbinado sugar. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350*F and bake for another 5 minutes. Check at this point, and if the tops are getting too brown, cover with foil. Bake for another 5 minutes. Remove and allow to cool in the tin before removing muffins and setting on a cooling rack.

See, it’s like I pretty much got you all a Christmas gift…early! 🙂