I woke up this morning ready to celebrate Friday.  This, despite the fact that I’m convinced that I’m due at least fourteen hours more sleep, and moving past the idea that I deserve a sleep re-do for having fallen asleep with all the light on, teeth unbrushed and (gasp!) bra still on.  I don’t get a do-over, or more sleep… but I do get a Friday, and that’s a little bit of all right with me.

This week, I overheard someone say “Whatever… you know that Thursday is the new Friday.”  Hm… I don’t know where they work, or how they pull that off, but to me “Friday is the same, old Friday”… and sometimes “Saturday is the new Friday” making “Sunday the new weekend”.

Wanting to celebrate Friday as the same, old Friday got me thinking about all the great little moments I had during the week.  You know… the little things- getting a card in the mail from Mom, or finding a crumpled ten dollar bill in your back pocket.

What are the three best things that happened to you this week?   Think on it.  Here’s what I’m workin’ with.

1. I dropped a cake I had just baked on the floor.  We can talk more about that later,  but thought to myself:  ok, well that shouldn’t happen again for another few months.  I’m glad that’s out of the way.  Then I wanted to yell and swear, but there was no one around to hear it, so I didn’t bother.  This restraint for lack of an audience later made me laugh at myself.

2.  I’m sitting here, in this very moment, enjoying a cup of hot tea and a few of my dad’s buttermilk biscuits.  It’s quiet and sunny and just warm enough to not regret my warm covers in the other room.  Quiet simplicity is a week highlight for sure.

3.  I’m going up to Oakland this weekend.  I’m going to wear a dress.  Don’t try to stop me.  Both things are going to happen.

In the meantime, I think you should take these Cinnamon Raisin Pull-Apart Muffins for a spin.

These Pull Apart Muffins might be a problem.  See, they’re as fun to eat as they are delicious.  They’re basically, a pizza crust recipe, patted down, doused with flour, cinnamon and sugar, then tossed with a buttery brown sugar mixture, cut into chunks and packed lightly into a greased muffin tin.  They bake up into loose muffins made up of doughy, spiced chunks of yummy breakfast goodness.

Cinnamon Raisin Pull Apart Muffins

Print this recipe!

makes about a dozen muffins.

3 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
2  tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 Tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

handful of golden raisins (optional)

more flour, granulated sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.  The dough should looks like this after the first knead.

Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it —

one-bowl recipe!-dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.  I placed my bowl of wrapped dough in the fridge overnight instead of leaving it out for two hours.

Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.  If you’ve left your dough in the fridge overnight like I did, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, place the covered bowl of dough near the oven, or on a stovetop burner that doesn’t get too hot, bringing the dough to room temperature faster.  After it’s been out of the fridge for about 30 minutes, dump it onto a floured counter, press the air out and knead the dough into a smooth, happy ball.  Return to the down to warm up a bit more, and rise just a bit more, about 30 minutes more.  Your dough should be doubled in size from the previous night.  The dough should look like this after the second knead.  Smooth!

Grease a muffin pan with vegetable shortening and dust it with flour.  Set aside.  On a well floured work surface, dump out the dough.  Press out with your hands until your dough is about 3/4-inch thick.  The shape doesn’t matter so much.  Begin to cut the dough into small chunks.  Mine were just smaller that one inch chunks.  If the dough sticks to your knife, just flour you knife a bit.  Once cut into chunks, sprinkle the pieces with a bit of flour, a handful of granulated sugar and a generous dusting of ground cinnamon.  Toss on the counter top.

In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, flour, cornstarch, raisins and cinnamon until well combined.  I brought my mixture together with my hands.

Fill the muffin tin to the halfway point with dough chunks, softly packing them in.  Top with about a tablespoon of the sugar mixture, then top with more dough chunks, packing lightly.  Finish with more sugar mixture.  That’s four layers for each muffin.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 12-15 minutes, keeping an eye on them after 12 minutes.  Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes.  Run a sharp knife around the edges of each muffin then gently scoop out of the muffin tin.  Enjoy!