So I moved to Los Angeles.

I'm really happy to be here, even though this city is historically my least favorite city anywhere. I drove through Beverly Hills the other day and the word "guillotine" just kept slipping from my mouth unbidden, because seriously, what the fuck, guys.

I digress. You want to know how to make a muffin loaf, I'm gonna tell you how to make a muffin loaf. This thing came about because I moved and I needed to bake about it, but my muffin tin was packed, and so were most of my usual ingredients. I used some muffin know-how and a pile of things I happened to have handy, and what came from it was pretty damned good. We ate the entire loaf in like two days, and now it's a weekly staple. So now "muffin loaf" is a thing! Here you go:

You need:
.5 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
vanilla
cinnamon
nutmeg
dried cherries (chopped)
walnuts (chopped)

Do This Stuff
0. Preheat oven to 350(F) or 176(C) or 450(K)
1. Mix the butter and sugar together
2. Add the eggs and milk, mix all that up real good
3. Add the flour and baking powder, stir everything together
4. Fold your spices and cherries and walnuts in there
5. Butter a loaf pan and sprinkle some salt on it
6. Blorp the batter into the loaf pan and sprinkle more salt on top
7. Bake 'er up: 60 minutes, or until a butter knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Things you can afford to screw up, as I have learned from experience
1. Forget that this recipe uses the creaming method. Grab the butter from the fridge, cold, while the oven is preheating. Throw the whole stick into a bowl and microwave it for 30 seconds, hoping it won't melt too much. It will. Mix the hot melted part of the butter with the cold solid part and then put it back in the fridge to try to make it solid enough to count as "softened". This will not work. Mix the sugar in with it and hope for the best.
2. You are lactose intolerant. But putting the milk into a loaf probably neutralizes it, right? ...Right?
3. Stir much too quickly. Flour everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
4. Remember how you were supposed to chop those cherries and walnuts? Remember that? Ha ha ha ha ha HA HA
5. There was a time when you knew where your loaf pan was. There was a time when you didn't have to leave batter sitting on the counter while you dug through boxes.
6. This step will go perfectly. Well done. Lick the spoon.
7. Shit. You already have a chicken roasting in the oven. They need to cook at basically the same temperature, but there's a LOT of garlic in that chicken. What if the muffin loaf turns into a chicken loaf?
...You know what, fuck it, throw it in there. Chicken loaf sounds fine. Go watch an episode of Hannibal, you earned this.