Wedding Shower Brunch, Part 2 (Putting the "Br" in "Brunch"!)

Lauren’s shower was a great success, if I do say so myself. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, the bride-to-be had a good time, and things went off without a hitch.  When I last left off, I mentioned that we had decided to go with a brunch menu. This was for two reasons—1) Lauren mentioned that she was partial to mimosas and bloody marys which definitely lend themselves to brunch over lunch or afternoon tea or anything like that and 2) I happen to like brunch and thought it would be relatively easy to put together a nice spread.

The first thing that came to mind when planning a brunch menu was quiche—it’s tasty, can easily serve a number of people, and is good warm or room temperature (which was important since I was hosting the brunch in the community room of my apartment building).  Rather than make three quiches myself, I decided to take a little help where I could get it and buy them from Whole Foods (which I knew from previous experience were delicious). We ended up with two spinach and roasted red pepper quiche and one quiche Lorraine (with ham, cheese, etc.). They were a huge hit!

To round out the breakfast portion of our brunch menu (the "br" in "brunch" if you will), I decided to go with some sort of muffin and quick bread.  Given the October date, I couldn’t resist making pumpkin bread. And since it was a wedding shower, I decided to go with delicious and equally cute raspberry-topped lemon mini muffins from Smitten Kitchen. I’d made these delicious things for Jason for Valentine’s Day last year and they definitely do not disappoint.

These recipes are perfect whatever the occasion!

Raspberry-Topped Lemon Muffins
From Smitten Kitchen 
Ingredients:
1 1/8 cups granulated sugar, divided
4 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest (from two large lemons)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Fresh raspberries (Blueberries or blackberries would also work)

1.Preheat oven to 375. Line 14 standard muffin cups (or 56 minis) with paper liners. You can also spray with cooking spray and avoid the liners all together.
2.Mash 1/8 cup of sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl until sugar is slightly moist. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat remining 1 cup sugar and butter in large bowl until smooth. Beat in egg. Beat in buttermilk, then vanilla and lemon sugar. Add in flour mixture and beat until just smooth.
3.Divide batter among muffin cups (until 2/3 to ¾ full). Top each muffin with 2 raspberries (or 1 raspberry each for the mini-muffins).
4.Bake muffins until lightly brown on top and tester inserted into the center comes out clean—about 35 minutes for standard muffins and 20 minutes for minis.

Pumpkin Bread
From Cooking Light
Ingredients:
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 TBL baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground allspice
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup egg substitute
½ cup canola oil
½ cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
2/3 cup water
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
1/3 cup chopped pecans

1.Preheat oven to 350.
2.Combine flour and next 6 ingredients (through allspice) in a bowl.
3.Place sugar, egg substitute, oil, buttermilk,  and eggs in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at high speed until well blended. Add water and pumpkin, beating at low speed until blended.
4.Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, beating at low speed until just combined.
5.Spoon batter into two 9 x 5 loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle pecans evenly over batter.
6.Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack. Remove from pans and cook completely on the wire rack. (Note: I like to freeze one of the loaves and save for future use. Just be sure to wrap in plastic wrap and foil before sticking it in the freezer and let sit out overnight to thaw.)