Cookies and Candids

I’m in New York on vacation right now, visiting friends (who are basically like family; it is amazing to be able to drop in on a whim, and be welcomed so warmly! And every time I visit, I feel like I never left…). It is cold here. Very cold. My bones were cold today…And I know, I’m from California, I might be a weather-wimp, but really, all the East Coasters were cold too! One thing that makes me warmer is cooking, and keeping the oven on. We baked apple muffins this morning, and after braving the biting wind to get into the city to the Whitney Museum and back, we came home and made a hearty “kitchen sink” vegetable soup.

You must be wondering, the title of this post has nothing to do with apples or soups, so will I get to the point yet? Truthfully, this post is about the muffins I made last week. I had a close family friend and her son over for brunch (it was actually on Christmas Eve morning, has it really been that long?), and I wanted to surprise them with a tasty treat to follow our bagels. It needed to be both adult- and kid-friendly, and have a seasonal twist so that it would feel appropriate for the holiday. I was inspired by Isa’s Gingerbread Flax Muffins on The Post Punk Kitchen Blog, and whipped them up that morning. They were easy and scrumptious. The only changes I made to Isa’s recipe were to add about a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger and a sprinkling of some diced candied ginger on top. I also put a pinch of coarse sugar on top of each muffin to give it a crunchy outside. Soft and moist in the middle, with a healthy dose of gingerbread spices, this muffin pleased everyone’s palettes and even had 3 year old Dylan coming back for seconds, thirds, and tastes of a fourth!