Redemption of the $4 Coffee House Muffin

"Excuse me, is that your son licking the windows?" Nervous laughter. Do I pretend to NOT know him and say, " Nope, just hanging out getting my peach muffin..." or take the proud mom version - "Yes, and in his defense, there are pictures of fruit painted on the windows". Let’s be honest, there is no graceful recovery. Just plain mortification. It’s time to leave the trendy, cool coffee shop. My order was placed so I made the difficult decision to abandon the most amazing peach muffin that I have ever tasted. The place is so cool! Kids area and great coffee. It makes the $4 muffin totally worth the trip. I have the BEST group of friends - I turn to one of them, tell her she can have my order, grab said window licker and I am OUT the door. 3 year old boys can be so unpredictable - it’s like herding cats sometimes.

As we are departing the shop, I say to the girls - "let’s do this at my house next week! I’ll make the muffins!". Most important lesson of the day? I should have taken my peach muffin. It looked incredible.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids - there are just days when it is easier to entertain at home. However, I spent the entire week craving that silly, over-priced muffin. Last week however, peach muffin redemption was mine! Play date at my house and we rocked our own Peach Yogurt Muffins. Wait until you see how easy they are to make! (and WAY cheaper!).

As you gather your ingredients together, heat the oven to 400 F.

Combine 1/2 cup melted butter and 8 oz (usually 1 container) peach yogurt in a large bowl.

Add in 1 egg, slightly beaten.

Next, add 2 tablespoons of fat free half & half. I know... you have the whole carton left, but invite some friends over for coffee - voila! Coffee creamer!

Last is the 1/2 teaspoon almond extract. The real extract smells incredible.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour and 1/2 cup sugar.

Add in 2 teaspoons of baking powder...

...1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until it is moist.

You can use a regular spatula - it mixes together very easily.

Pour in 1/4 cup slivered almonds. The kind I grabbed seemed a little large to put in the muffins, so I placed in a bag and smashed it a few times to break them up into smaller pieces. (it was also very medicinal!)

Line the muffin tin with paper liners or you can grease the muffin pan. Window licker "doing his time" in the kitchen to help (no finger puppets were harmed in the making of these muffins). Good thing he’s cute right?

Spoon batter mix into paper-lined cups. The recipe did not say how much to spoon in, but these are 2/3 full. Remember if you are using a darker non stick muffin pan, reduce the oven temp to 375.

Muffins are baked for 16 - 19 minutes or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.We also made some mini muffins for the kids.

While the muffins are in the oven, you can make the glaze - simple and quick. Take 2/3 cup powdered sugar...

...and add in 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract...

...2-3 teaspoons of lemon juice. I found that even the 3 teaspoons still left the glaze a little "chunky", so I added in another teaspoon (ok, it was probably a tablespoon - it was a quick squeeze on the lemon juice!)

The glaze should look like this:

When the muffins are ready to be taken out of the oven, let them cool 5 minutes.

Remove from the pan.

Spoon the glaze mixture over the warm muffins.

With our mini muffins, we only glazed a few because we knew we couldn’t chase down the sticky fingers fast enough as the kids traveled around the house. Better to just leave the glaze off. (I know when to pick my battles). The mini muffins were delicious even without the glaze!

Glad I found an even better version of my $4 coffee shop peach muffin (without spending the $4!). It will probably be a while before I venture back to the coffee shop - I live in a small town! In the meantime, I will make sure to add the window licking incident to the list of "lessons I will teach my son when he is older". It is number 14. Right after "when he gets his first car, I will sit in the back seat so I can quietly spill 16 oz of soda and grind an entire bag of goldfish into the seats."

Kids! We love them anyway! Do you have a favorite coffee house muffin we could try next? Love to hear what you guys think about these Peach Yougurt Muffins!

Come back in a few days when Amanda will share a shrimp recipe with a citrus twist.

Alex is paid to write for the Land O’Lakes Recipe Buzz® Blog.