Muffin Mayhem

  When I woke up this morning, I had the strange urge to bake something.  I examined the contents of my pantry and settled on a Cooking Light recipe I’d been eyeing for some time now, Zucchini-PineappleQuick Bread.  The recipe yielded 2 loaves of quick bread, but since I generally prefer muffins to loaves, I decided to make half the recipe into muffins. 

     After skimming through the recipe one last time, I was satisfied that I had all the ingredients and began the process.  What I didn’t know then, was that this particular baking adventure would soon be known as “Muffin Mayhem”.

     In no time at all, I had mixed, mashed and measured the last of the batter into the proper baking dishes they were ready to be shoved into the oven.  Everything seemed to be moving along just fine when I realized I had overlooked the crucial last step… add pineapple. I figured that since I had wanted to try this recipe for so long, I should do it as written.  Seeing as pineapple was one of the main ingredients and part of the recipe title, I set about pouring and scraping all the batter back into the mixing bowl in order to add the forgotten ingredient.  Waste of time…check!  Waste of muffin liners…check!  Annoying… DOUBLE check!! 

     Unbeknownst to me, this was only the first of many mishaps for my zucchini-pineapple bread.  After re-filling the muffin tins and loaf pan, I put it in the oven and patiently waited.  Ding!  Muffins are done… perfect!  Twenty minutes later the loaf finished and also looked fantastic.  By this time, the muffins had cooled and were ready for a taste test.  I grabbed one and brewed myself a cup of Wild Mountain Blueberry coffee (if you haven’t tried this flavor yet, do it now!  You’re welcome!).  I sat down with my meal and called my friend Cindy, where we proceeded to catch up over one of our normal “breakfast phone dates”.
     After we had finished chatting, I was excited to see if the bread had turned out as delicious as the muffins.  Upon walking into the kitchen, I noticed that the entire loaf had deflated and had sunk down in the middle.  Oops!  "Maybe it’ll be okay?", I thought to myself.  I proceeded to try pop the loaf out of the pan, when-- PLOP!  A pile of gooey mess falls out onto the counter… turns out that the middle was not set yet and I had taken it out of the oven too early.  Today was just NOT my day!!  

     Since this was not the first let-down of the day, I just chalked it up to an "off" baking experience and accepted defeat.  At least the muffins turned out alright.

     I began to clean up my tornado of a mess and was carrying a bowl of flour to the sink when my spastic canine (thinking I was carrying food in which he was entitled to) ran through my feet and tripped me.  Of course, the bowl flew through the air.  After a comedic, but successful attempt to stop the bowl from hitting the floor, I was left standing in a cloud of flour dust.  After the "dust" cleared, I looked below me and found “this” in which I could find no words…