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Health & Fitness

Flour on the Floor: Coffeecake Muffins

If I said, "Good morning, here's some birthday cake, dig in," I'd earn odd stares. But when you put the word "coffee" in front of it, it's suddenly okay to eat cake for breakfast.

Summer.  That word used to mean, “Yippee, no school!”  Now that I have kids, it means, “Ugh, no school!” 

I spent my teen summers basting in a baby oil/iodine mix, driving up and down the beach (this was Florida, people) hooting and honking at boys, and coming home to find the skin cancer articles Dad had taped to my bedroom door.  Unstrung, undelineated days slipped by in a fog of Andy Griffith Show reruns and trips to McDonald’s.

Now I slather on sunblock to slow my skin’s rapid aging.  I still hoot at boys but they are seven and are having water gun fights and I am yelling, “Don’t shoot him in the eye.”  I always know the day of the week because its printed on my daughter’s underwear.  I also know the hour and the minute; I am counting them until camp starts.

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In the meantime I am the cruise director, chef, and entertainment.  “I have to get dinner on the table” is an imperative.  “I really need to make a cake,” is not.  Baking is a luxury.  It seemed unlikely to happen this busy week.  What I needed to do was pin it to something—to give myself an external deadline.  I decide to bake for my morning book group meeting (reading a book is another luxury and I haven’t finished the one we’ll be discussing).  I cement this deal with myself by under-buying food to serve to my four friends and their six little girls. 

My daughter and I get up early to bake before our friends arrive.  She is a girl who likes to look forward to things and practically sleeps in her apron the night before in a fit of excitement.  I too am eager because we are going to make coffeecake muffins.

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At the mention of this, my husband launches into his Seinfeld impersonation, “What’s the deal with coffeecake?  I mean, it doesn’t have coffee in it and it’s not even a cake.”  Here I sigh, remind him that it is, indeed, a cake, and ask him to leave the kitchen. 

But it does make me think that when you put the word “coffee” in front of it, it’s suddenly okay to eat cake for breakfast.  If everyone showed up and I said, “Good morning, here’s some birthday cake, dig in,” I’d earn odd stares.  Tiramisu actually has coffee flavor in it but if I serve that for breakfast, suddenly I’m an eccentric.    

I think the idea of a coffeecake in muffin form is inspired—pre-measured single servings of heaven. We start by spraying the muffin tin using one of Baking Illustrated’s helpful suggestions to “place the muffin tin on an open dishwasher door and spray away.  Any excess or overspray will be cleaned off the door the next time you run the dishwasher.”  Now that my daughter is in her “I’ll do it myself” phase, this trick proves invaluable.  She greases the heck out of the pan and I watch the mess knowing I’ll be able to just shut that dishwasher door when she’s done.

Her independent attitude extends to her desire to cut the butter for the batter.  Before I can counter her potential use of knives with safety considerations, she has produced one of her own pink plastic ones and has started slicing the butter into chunks.  I realize that once she can read the recipes, I’ll be lucky if she lets me into the kitchen at all.

This is our first recipe that doesn’t require me to heave the twenty-five pound KitchenAid mixer onto the counter.  Everything is mixed in the food processor which adds the element of sharp blades to the cooking-with-children fun.  With my line of sight obscured by the plastic lid and scratched sides of the processor, I find it hard to know when the streusel topping is “the size of sesame seeds” or the batter is “just moistened.”  I likely over-mix everything which seems to be my baking theme.

Once “we” pour the batter into the pan and top with the streusel, time is running short; the muffins will still be in the oven when our guests arrive.  And the sink will be filled to the brim with dirtied bowls and utensils.  But they are moms, they understand. 

The muffins are a hit, warm and crunchy and sweet.  My friends give them thumbs up.  I eat one then cut another in half in a delusional effort to manage my intake.  Once the girls have left, I finish that other half.  My son eats two standing over the sink to catch the crumbs.  He cannot be bothered with a plate in his haste.  Watching him so clearly enjoy something I’ve created makes me happy.  So happy, in fact, that I eat another one. 

Between my book group and my own ravenous family, we end up with only one of the twelve muffins left.  My son reaches for it and I say, “No more for today.”  I assert, ignoring my own tally, that “Three is just too many.”

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