Bakin' Bacon Muffins!

D'oh! I forgot to set the timer on the muffins!

Friends, yesterday I told you all about my time as a Barista at the Coffee Kiosk in my office building as part of the Work Exchange Program, but what I really wanted to talk about is how much fun it is to help my friend Donut Dude out behind the counter at his donut place.

As uptight as the Coffee Kiosk people are, Donut Dude is fun.  And the Coffee Kiosk folks are so uptight, you can't call 'em 'folks' at all.  Just Coffee Kiosk Personnel, or as they like to call themselves, 'cast members.'

Whatevs.

I also recently had an out-of-building, or off-site Work Exchange Program experience at Donut Dude's.  Despite our rough start, the day I was sent to pick up coffee and donuts for my co-workers, and Donut Dude was all out of donuts, I love going to Donut Dude's, and I love helping him out behind the counter, when he needs the help and I'm free. 

Now, Donut Dude doesn't just have coffee and donuts.  He also sells bagels and muffins in his shop.  I've already worked the front counter, makin' coffee drinks for people when they come in, and visiting with them a little bit, while I wait on 'em.  A lot of them work right in my building!  How about that?! But I never worked in the business part of the bakery, so on this Work Exchange Program Experience, Donut Dude put me in charge of bakin' his famous Bacon Muffins.

Wonder what I should do.

Hey, I saw that snoot you made.  Un-make the snoot and let me tell ya what Bacon Muffins are.  They're a sweet-savory muffin made from Donut Dude's own Maple-Sweet Muffin Batter Base, which is sweet enough, and maple-y enough, but not overpoweringly so.  Then, Donut Dude mixes in semi-sweet miniature chocolate chips and crumbled-up applewood-smoked bacon.  And THEN, he makes a Maple Swirl in each individual Bacon Muffin and adds a Sweet-Maple-Bacon Crumbly Top to the top and bakes 'em.

They're so good!  They're like eatin' chocolate chip pancakes and gettin' some of the syrup on your bacon on your plate, and eatin' it all together!  MmmmmmmmmMMMMM!

What's that? ... Oh, you freak out when your syrup touches your bacon?  Well, I'm... wow.  I don't know what to say to that.  There are a lotta other things that are better to freak out about than havin' your maple syrup touch your bacon.  ... Snakes, for instance. ... Oh, yeah?  You don't  mind snakes?  What if it's a two-hundred pound anaconda that can open doors and lives right outside your house?  Now the syrup touching your bacon doesn't seem like something so worthy of a freak-out over, does it?!

Anyway.  That explanation took longer than I thought it was going to.  My point of this story is that Donut Dude had me baking up the Bacon Muffins, and on one batch, I forgot to set the timer.  Donut Dude has a lotta ovens, with a lotta different batches of muffins bakin' in 'em, and they all kinda look alike to a little kid, and I forgot to set the timer on one batch, and couldn't remember when it was that I'd put it in the oven, because I got to work on the next batch as soon as I had those in the oven, and it'd been like that all day!

You know how it is with muffins, Friends.  You've gotta leave 'em in the oven for just the right amount of time, not too short a time, or you'll have gummy middles, and not too long, because whether or not you think very much of Donut Dude's Bacon Muffins, you've gotta agree that you don't wanna leave 'em in the oven too long, because NOBODY likes to eat charcoal.

Well, maybe a dragon would like to eat charcoal.  Or somebody with Pica.  I wouldn't trust the judgment of either of those demographics, though.

And you can't just open up the oven door on a pan of muffins if they're not ready, or you'll have a mess.  You will.  I didn't know what to do, but I didn't want to mess up a whole batch of Donut Dude's muffins, so I took a chance, opened up the oven door, and...

Down to my last Bacon Muffin.  Time to make more!

You know, I'm starting to think that what I have is an uncannily perfect sense of timing, Friends!  My baker-sense got to tingling, and I worried about those muffins I forgot to set the timer for, and when I opened that oven door, they were JUST PERFECT! 

Crisis averted!

I learned my lesson, Friends.  When I'm rushing around, helping Donut Dude in his bakery, I can't plan to rely on my stellar memory alone, or else the muffins will suffer.  Would that make them suffins?  Do you know?

Anyway.  I leave myself reminders on the oven doors now.  When I close up a new batch of muffins inside, there's a note: "Didja set the oven timer?" and it reminds me to set the oven timer.  No gummy middles, no charcoally muffins on my watch!

Reminders!  They're like magical magic!

I love ya, Friends!  Don't be afraid to try new foods, even Bacon Muffins!  I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!