Waking the Class before Spring Break

All right, I have an 8 am class of college students (and myself) to wake up on Tuesday. I plan to do so this time with...drum roll please, the aforementioned or is that, afore-posted, ; ) "coffee break muffins." I will be sending them off on Spring Break, and finishing a discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal Vegetable Miracle. It only seems appropriate to have a caffeine infused talk.

Coffee Break Muffins
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

variations: *http://hungrygirlporvida.blogspot.com/2008/06/muffin-break-in-afternoon.html adds a walnut topping, and *The food librarian adds chocolate chips....

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp instant espresso powder
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup strong coffee, cooled
1 stick (8 tbsp) butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
½ tsp vanilla
preheat oven to 400 F.

Mix together first five ingredients in a large bowl to combine—add brown sugar, making sure to break up any lumps.

Whisk together wet ingredients. Add to dry mixture just to combine—do not over mix. Lumps are perfectly acceptable in muffins.
divide evenly into lined or greased muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes (start watching around 15) or until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean. Let the pan cool on a rack for 5 minutes before carefully removing the muffins. It is suggested that you allow the muffins to cool completely before eating.

Thank you to East Village Kitchen blog for the recipe shared here.