Last night my kitchen smelt sooo good!

Every Thursday someone in my department brings breakfast to work for everyone, between 20 – 25 people.  So each of us have to do it roughly twice a year.

Let me tell you, you never feel quite as popular as you do on that day. That is, unless you are late, or forgot. Then you are treated like an ugly step child would be in a movie.

Today it was my turn.  So I went home last night and baked up a storm. Really we even had thunder and lightning (it might rain a lot here in Belgium but we very seldom have thunder and lightning)

I baked a bacon and corn bread … and it was nice but a bit on the heavy side. I think the next time I bake it I might not add the cream style corn.  This bread was very popular but it is heavy so a single slice goes a long way.

I also baked pumpkin muffins and they were DELICIOUS, even if I have to say so myself.

I will for sure be baking them again.  I did not stick to the recipes very strictly but the end result was fantastic and that is all that counts.

That plus some fresh bread from the bakery, cold cuts, cheese, and fruit juice … the breakfast menu was complete.

please excuse the quality of the photo, taken with my phone at around 11 last night

again, bad photo, taken last night before the glaze was added. for some reason the photo I took of the glazed muffin did not want to load.

Bacon & Mielie bread

(mielie (pronounced mealie) is Afrikaans for corn.

PS. This is not the recipes I used but I think it is a slightly better one since it does not call for the creamed style corn.

Ingredients

• 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 8 Rashers of Bacon, Diced
• 4 Large Eggs
• 1 cup Milk
• ¼ cup Butter, melted
• 3 cups Corn Kernels (fresh or frozen)
• 2½ cups Cheddar Cheese, grated

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F / 170 ºC and then start by frying up the bacon bits until crispy.
2. Sift the dry ingredients together.
3. Whisk the melted butter, milk and eggs together in a bowl.
4. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients and blend well.
5. Add the corn kernels, cheese and bacon bits to the mixture and blend well (mixture will be thick).
6. Pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin and top with half a cup of grated cheese.
7. Bake the bread for 60-75 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Allow the bread to cool before slicing. Top with butter and enjoy as a side or for breakfast.

Credit goes to: Traci

Serves: 12

Pumpkin muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (from a 15 ounce can)**
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice***
1 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar****
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

* I used 2 ½ cups

** I bought a small pumpkin and made pumpkin puree from scratch, you can’t buy pumpkin puree here in Belgium. It came to about 1½ cups worth of puree

*** yet another thing that you can’t buy here in Belgium so I just added 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1 tsp - ish of  ground cloves & about ½ tsp of nutmeg

**** I used nearly a cup of brown sugar but because that was all I had in the house and all the shops were closed I used plain old white sugar for the rest. Also, I might have used more than ¼, but whatever.

Instructions

Whisk* together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.
Stir together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl. (I did not do this at all)
Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about three-fourths full), then sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar mixture (again, didn’t do this at all). Bake at 350F / 170 ºC until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. (I think I baked them for about 18 min in a fan oven, so just keep an eye on them)
Cool in pan on a rack five minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

* I used a metal whisk and whisk it all by hand, that way you don’t over mix (don’t they always tell you not to over mix muffins?)

Before going to work this morning I quickly made a glaze to drizzle over the muffins.

I didn’t measure anything out, just a blob of butter, melted in a pot, some icing sugar, a dash or two of vanilla and some syrup. Mixed together and drizzle. I’ve run out of maple syrup but I think if you used maple i/o regular it would be even better.

credit: the basic recipes, before I got hold it can be found here