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I know, it’s Mardi Gras, and I’m supposed to be making pancakes, but the truth is, I just didn’t have time today. However, I will take this opportunity to blog about another recipe that I made recently that also uses up your excess flour, butter and eggs before Lent.

Yes, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and made Peabody’s Snickerdoodle Muffins, also known as, the little muffin that caused a big stir in the food blogging world… and I have to say, I totally understand the hype now! The dough was incredibly easy, made entirely from pantry items (except the sour cream… but how hard is it to get sour cream?) and rolling the dough in sugar before plopping it in the muffins tin made me giddy! Hee hee.

No, but these muffins are incredible. The outside, coated with sugar (I used cassonade, which is like Sugar in the Raw) ends up crunchy and crisp, while the inside of the muffin stays moist, probably due to the sour cream. The Canadian and I were both vying for the last one (he got it while I was at school). I made sixteen, and Britney got one… the rest we hoarded for ourselves.

I didn’t change anything… as always, the recipe is perfect, but if any of the rest of you have been slow like me about getting into the kitchen and making these… well then march yourself right on into the kitchen.

Now!

After the success of the Blueberry Hill Cupcakes this weekend (pictures coming soon to a blog near you), I decided this morning that I wanted to bake something else. Something with strawberries in it, to use up the pint in my kitchen. A strawberry cupcake, of sorts.

But as I looked through my list of recipes to try, (10 pages, people… singles spaced. Dear Lord, it’s an illness.) I realized that I had no such cupcake or even a similar muffin on my list! Disgruntled, I sauntered over to Peabody’s place and found a recipe for red, white, and blue muffins. Except that I knew that raspberries and blueberries were getting to be outrageously expensive (in France we don’t have California to keep us in fruit all year.) I growled audibly, muttered something nasty under my breath that had something to do with the Common Market, and kept going. And I found this: yeah, it wasn’t strawberries, but it was a muffin, and it was even on my list of things to try! Check and check. Off I went to the market to pick up the ingredients.

I have a little secret for you, reader: in France, they don’t use brown sugar. Or molasses. Or if they do, it must be only sold at some specialty shop far, far away from where I live. But I was going to make these muffins. So I grabbed a box of cassonade, which is really more like Sugar in the Raw than brown sugar, and marched home. Upon opening the box, I was greeted with that familiar brown-sugary smell, so it couldn’t be all bad. I mixed together the ingredients and noticed the severe peach to batter ratio. I double checked the recipe, but I had done everything right, and I trust Peabody, so I filled my little ramekins (muffin tins are another thing that are hard to find here. I line up aluminum ramekins on a baking sheet. Makes them easier to force out of their little hole when they’re being a little bit bitchy, though.)

20 minutes later, I had this. I think I underdid them a little bit (my ramekins are bigger than standard), but I don’t care if they kind of fall apart on you. They’re moist and chock full of peaches, and they do taste like brown sugar (yay cassonade!) Looks like the blueberry cupcakes have a contender for this evening, when I’ve invited people over to partake in the baking goodness…