September 29th, 2020

Early last week I started having a strong craving for muffins.  I mean it's all I could think about. Muffins!  And not grocery store bakery muffins either.  I find that grocery store bakery muffins - while not horrible - are too lightweight.  I want a dense, moist, substantial muffin. I do not want to taste preservatives, fake eggs or faux sugar.  (and I can tell the difference!)  I want a bakery muffin with all of the really bad for you stuff that makes a muffin so dang good.

I can and do make my own muffins. Often.  So there is no reason or rhyme to my cravings.  But this one was specific.  It needed to be from a real bakery.   A Dunkin' Donuts muffin, for example,  wasn't going to cut it.  And don't even talk to me about those nasty looking things that come wrapped in cellophane and sold in the convenience store part of gas stations.  I know that they are called muffins, but they aren't.  I'm not sure what they are, but I know what they are not.

For whatever reason, or for no reason at all, the specific muffin that I wanted is sold at Perkin's Restaurant and Bakery.    Perkin's is a perfectly ok place to eat.  It's not something I ever get excited about.  It's not a restaurant that I ever suggest when we are planning to enjoy a meal out.  It is not fine dining by any definition.  But if it's 3 in the morning and there is nothing else open and your plane got in really late and there is no food in the house are you are starving....well then, you can get a perfectly okay meal at Perkins'.  However, their bakery is pretty damned good.

We have gone there many times just for pie and never once regretted it.  (I can bake a really good pie but Tim and I do not need to eat an entire pie.  We can indulge in ONE slice at Perkins without glutting on an entire pie)  I have enjoyed their eclairs on occasion.  (Any eclair is a special treat, theirs are an extra special treat!)  And had a few cookies from there once or twice. (They aren't home made but they are quite good)  But the thing I like the most, the thing that they do the best, is muffins.  

And once autumn arrives, traditionally, they offer the pumpkin donut muffin.  I will say that again so you know that it is not a typo:  Pumpkin Donut Muffin.  It is glorious.  If a pumpkin donut and a pumpkin muffin got together and created offspring it would be this muffin.  All of the very best parts of a donut and the best parts of a muffin together in one magical concoction.  I'm drooling just thinking about it.

So when we were finally awake and functional this past Saturday morning and Tim asked what I wanted for breakfast, I said, Perkins muffins.  He grinned and said, "You just want that pumpkin donut muffin don't you"  I nodded so hard my head was in danger of falling off.  So we headed to our local Perkins.

It's not far, just off the Circus Bridge but we haven't visited in a very long time.  We entered and went straight to the baked goods case.  I admired the pies and eclairs first before moving over to the muffin case.  There were so many to choose from:  blueberry, raspberry sour cream, orange/cranberry, apple cinnamon, banana nut, pumpkin cream cheese, bran, chocolate chip and, and and.......well that's a lot but that was it?  Where was my pumpkin donut muffin?  I was confused.

The nice lady behind the counter asked if she could help us and Tim, because clearly he knows me well, asked about the my favourite muffin of all time.  And we were told that this year, they weren't making that one because, well, reasons.  I understood. Of course I did.  I'm an adult and the reasons were valid:  Understaffed, over worked, making do, cutting back to make up for financial losses during the virus,  and on and on.   But the child in me was very disappointed.  

Honestly, I think I was ready to say, "well thank you but I guess we will go" and leave muffin-less.  But now Tim was in the mood for muffins!   The original plan was to buy two muffins, one for Tim, one for me.  But then Tim spied a sign, buy 3, get 3.  Wow!  That's generous!  So we each chose three.

We ended up bringing home one blueberry, one raspberry sour cream, two pumpkin cream cheese and two apple cinnamon.

They were wonderful. Yes past tense.  They are all gone now.  They were almost exactly what a perfect muffin should be.  Over-sized, moist, generous with ingredients, no artificial anything, loaded with calories and fat, delicious and wonderful.

The only thing that could have made it better would have been if they also had the pumpkin donut muffin.  Oh well, maybe next year.

​