If I haven’t a clue what’s for breakfast but know my husband and best sous Dave would like something fresh, warm, and sweet when he comes home from the morning dog walk, I will usually throw together a mess of muffins. Occasionally there are scones or biscuits or a coffee cake instead, depending on my mood and what else might be on the menu. I can gather the ingredients for muffins, however, without much thought; get them into the oven; and have them piping hot on the rack–or nearly so– when he comes through the front door exactly 30 minutes after he leaves. But before I stir them up and bake them, I’ve got to check what’s available in the fruit, nut, or even occasionally chocolate department. When I’m muffin dreaming, as long as I have a cup of fruit or a bit more, there will soon be muffins no matter what. And if there isn’t enough fruit, I’ll probably make them anyway, perhaps adding nuts, coconut, or dried fruit. And if there are none of those things at all, there’s simply nothing wrong with the plain muffin I’d bake –or even a corn one. Especially served with butter and jam. A baker will bake, you see. Breakfast will be had.
I do nearly always have fresh blueberries and, if not, there’s a bag of frozen ones in the freezer waiting my measuring cup. (When they’re the best and the cheapest and come from the Pacific Northwest, I freeze a bunch.) The other day, I had Palisades peaches (known to the rest of the country as “Colorado peaches”) over-ripening in my south window and not too awfully many blueberries. There was, I thought, just enough fruit for 12 muffins if I combined the two. And what if I stirred in a little fresh ginger for spicy interest? Turned out to be a perfect match made right here on the mesa in Colorado Springs.
(Note: the muffins below had all of the fruit stirred into the batter.)
Muffins, one of my favorite quick breads are, however you make them, easy. But they’re not always easy to make well. Before you begin baking, scroll down below (just past the OXO peeler) to check out my edited and reposted MUFFIN TIPS–small things to do or know I’ve learned over the years but share here with you so you don’t have to spend years learning them.
Once you’ve got my MUFFIN TIPS (not muffin tops!!) under your belt, you’ll be ready to try these summery Colorado specials:
Colorado Peach Muffins with Cardamom Streusel
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240 grams) unbleached, all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (I use Morton's.)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup (250 ml) milk
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) neutral oil such as canola
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup (140 grams/5 oz) peeled, pitted, and chopped fresh Colorado peaches (I used two small ripe, unpeeled peaches, chopped into 1/2" dice. You can substitute any other peaches for our beautiful Colorado fruit, should it not be available!)
- Cardamom streusel topping (see NOTES)
Instructions
- PREPARATION: Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease a 12-count muffin tin really well.
- MIX INGREDIENTS:* In large bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder) well. Set aside.*In separate 2-4 cup measuring cup or small bowl, beat together the wet ingredients (milk, egg, oil). Pour milk mixture into bowl of dry ingredients and mix briefly. *In a small bowl, stir together the peaches with the lemon juice and then add the peach mixture to the batter. Stir until just blended. Do not over mix.
- ADD BATTER TO MUFFIN TIN, SPRINKLE WITH STREUSEL, AND BAKE: *Using a large ice cream scoop sprayed with cooking spray or greased, divide the batter between well-greased muffin cups. (Or use paper liners.) Sprinkle the top of the batter in each muffin cup with about a tablespoon streusel. *Bake 13-16 min. OR until barely done. The muffins should be just done to the touch on top (still pale beneath the topping) with golden streusel and sides. Remove tin to a rack and let muffins rest in the pan 2 minutes.*Remove muffins from tin using a small offset spatula or a butter knife and cool briefly on a rack. Serve warm with lots of softened butter.Best eaten within a day or two. Store in a gallon plastic bag or in a Tupperware-style (or glass with lid) container at room temperature for 2 days, in the refrigerator for a week, or in the freezer for 2-3 months
Notes
A note about Joseph Nichols Tavern: When I googled that name for many years, I came up with not much. Today, I find a beautiful photo of the brick, Federal-style tavern (later known as The Western Hotel) in Lynchburg, Virginia. I’m guessing it was once happily serving blueberry muffins to adoring crowds. Anyone in Virginia remember?
CHANGE IT UP: This recipe is easily adaptable using all peaches; all blueberries; more peaches than blueberries; a mixture of berries; apples and raisins and so on. Add a few nuts if you like. Try diced strawberries and tiny chocolate chips. Use chopped fresh cherries and add a 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. No fresh ginger? Sub 1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger. Spicy Tip: I keep a small jar of grated ginger in my fridge for emergencies like these muffins! You can also freeze fresh ginger. Just put the knob in a small container in the freezer and take it out to use as needed.
PEELING PEACHES: YAY OR NAY? (Either way works.)
Peaches are easily peeled by dipping them into boiling water for about 30 seconds before peeling but if you’d like to skip that process, try out a serrated peeler made for peeling soft fruits and vegetables like peaches and tomatoes. Or skip the peeling completely as peach skins are fairly soft and bake up nicely. Try it and see what you think of the result as unpeeled fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients than the peeled variety.
MUFFIN TIPS: edited and reposted from November, 2023
The devil is in the details! Something to remember is: muffins are, in fact, bread. They are not cake. They shouldn’t look, feel, or taste like cake. They may be a little sweet –and therefore a really gooood bread– but are aptly named a quick bread. Quick breads are breads made without yeast and today are usually made with chemical leavening, though not always. Other quick breads are biscuits, tea breads, popovers, soda bread, scones, bannocks, etc.. Muffins could be breakfast bread, snack bread, soup bread,…but bread, for sure.
After saying all that, of course there’s a full-blown chocolate “muffin” taking the world of baking by storm this Olympic week. Fun stuff! Check out one recipe here.
READ THE BAKENJOY (Bake’n Joy) MUFFIN TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE HERE.
WHICH PAN TO USE? The 5 Best Muffin Tins/FOOD AND WINE I use the Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Muffin Pan after trying several sad sack muffin tins, which I won’t name. My WS pan does need lots of greasing as I use paper liners but rarely. An aside: my very old aluminum 6 and 9-cup muffin tins never stuck. Today’s muffin tins are not so slick. I’m unsure why.
*HOW TO GREASE THE CUPS? WHAT ABOUT TEXTURE? Grease the muffin cups, even the nonstick ones, really well (on the tops/edges, too) to achieve at least two-textured muffins. Your muffins should have a crispy or somewhat crunchy outside texture, which you’ll get from the batter baking right up against the hot, greased metal, and a tender, pebbly one or crumb on the inside. Other textures may include soft or softened fruit or crunchy nuts or seeds. I’m not in favor of paper or parchment muffins pan liners because the batter steams inside them (no crunchy exterior) but use them if you really like them or just don’t want to grease pans. They’re useful if you must bake pan after pan of muffins or are transporting a large number of muffins to another spot. I like shortening for greasing metal bread pans including muffin tins. Mostly because for too many years I couldn’t afford to use butter for such things but now because I think it works well, doesn’t go bad, and I always have it at hand. Last, it’s at room temperature all the time. Other bakers are sold on cooking sprays like PAM, baking sprays such as Baker’s Joy, or softened butter (can use melted butter with pastry brush). Do a trial run and choose your fat.
*Preheat your oven well. Muffins need a hot oven (such as 400 degrees F) to rise high and bake quickly. Make sure your rack is at the center of the oven and your muffin tin is placed in the center of that rack. My BLUE STAR gas oven takes 20-25 minute to totally preheat. Check your oven manual to see what your oven’s manufacturer recommends.
*Check your oven temperature regularly using an oven thermometer; the temperature is easily off and you may need to adjust up or down. Some ovens can be recalibrated without a repair person. Read your manual to see if this is possible. You can also check your temperature without an oven thermometer, if necessary.
*Be sure your baking powder is new (under six months old) for a tall muffin rather than a flat one. How to Tell if Baking Powder is Still Good/David Lebovitz Baking soda has a longer shelf life.
*Simplify measuring liquid ingredients by using a 2-cup measuring cup if you have one and aren’t measuring your liquids by weight on a scale. With this recipe, for example, start with the milk (one cup), add the oil (up to 1 1/3 cups) and then whisk in the egg. Use all room-temperature ingredients. See right photo.
*For easy, quick morning muffins, do your prep the night before. Grease the pan, measure or weigh the dry ingredients into a large bowl or 8-cup measuring cup and leave covered on the counter or in the cold oven should you have inquisitive pets or critters. Mix the liquid ingredients, cover, and refrigerate. The next morning, preheat the oven while you make coffee, first taking out the liquids to warm up and the dry ingredients/pan if you’ve stored them in the oven! Stir muffin batter together, fill muffin cups, and bake.
*We mix dry and wet ingredients separately in order to prevent over-mixing the batter, which leads to a tough baked good. The wet ingredients can literally be beaten together so they’re well mixed; the dry are only stirred or whisked together. When they’re combined, it’s best to stir them together with a rubber spatula until just barely mixed for a tender crumbed muffin. That last thought may be the very most important part of muffin-making. Do not over mix!! With what should you mix the batter? You can choose from a variety of utensils such as wooden spoons, whisks, etc. I particularly like a large rubber spatula because it will 1. get to the bottom and sides of the mixing cup or bowl dredging up all the flour and 2. get every last bit of batter out. Waste not!
*Use a cooking sprayed or greased ice cream scoop to fill the muffin cups in the tin. After a while, you’ll know by sight how much to scoop up to add to each muffin cup.
*For the prettiest muffins, add a little extra fruit right on top after you’ve filled the muffin cups. (see below)
*Once the muffin batter is mixed and the tin filled –each cup no more than 2/3 – 3/4 full– bake immediately. Most baking powder is double-acting, meaning it begins to work as it becomes wet and then again in the oven.
*Extra batter? Sometimes we’ve used more fruit or for just some odd reason, there’s more batter than the muffin tin will hold. Rather than use another 12-cup tin, grease a ramekin or two (as needed) and bake the extra batter that way. The ramekin-baked muffin may take a little less time to bake, so keep an eye on it. (No ramekins? Try an oven-safe cup, bowl, or mug.)
*Bake until muffins are just done with crispy bottoms/sides, a firm pale or just golden in spots top, and a tender, pebbly crumb. If one stubborn muffin has a really moist spot on top near a piece of fruit and the other muffins are done, take out the underdone muffin and stick it back in the oven in a ramekin or something ovenproof and give it another minute or two. Otherwise you risk over baking the whole shebang.
*Remove muffins from the pan within a minute or two to a cooling rack using an offset spatula (see above), a butter knife, or similar small, rounded edge utensil. Muffins left in the hot tin will continue to bake, giving you an unhappy, over-baked muffin instead of a moist, light treat. If you’ve really greased your tin well and there is no batter baked over onto the top of the pan, you may be able to just bang the he// out of the pan (hold it on both sides with mitts first) and turn it over to release the muffins onto the cooling rack. Quickly turn the muffins right side up so there are not odd little dents in the tops of the muffins from the metal rack.
*Best eaten warm and fresh with copious amounts of butter and very hot coffee, muffins are also lovely at room temperature, great for car trip snacks, or for carrying to a meeting, class, or the Thanksgiving potluck. Stick them in a towel or napkin-lined basket, add a ramekin of butter with a spreader, cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and off you go.
*STORAGE: Store leftover muffins in a ziplock bag or Tupperware or similar glass container, but know that the crispy edge may no longer feel so crispy after several hours. They’ll still eat! How long? Stilltasty.com says: 1-2 days at room temperature; 1 week in the fridge; 2-3 months in the freezer. (If you live in a hot or humid climate, you might want to store your muffins in the fridge right after serving them.) See below for info on reheating.
*Muffins are great for breakfast or snacks but they’re also a tasty, quick bread for the lunch or dinner table. If you’ve a small dinner but need more, muffins will round or fill out the meal perfectly. And contrary to popular opinion, muffins needn’t contain fruit or any additional ingredients. They’re tasty plain, all on their own. Recipe for plain muffins here.
*Have a kid interested in baking? Muffins are a fine early baking experience. They’re easy, inexpensive, versatile, hard to mess up, and they’re done quickly– which means the newbie baker gets to try her baked goods right away. Means a lot. Makes lovely memories, too.
*REHEATING: While you can reheat a few muffins in the oven wrapped in foil, they’re best–and mostly quickly– split, buttered, and heated on a grill pan or in a small skillet. Try it and see; you’ll be surprised.
HAPPY BAKING!
If you liked this, you might also like my:
Blueberry Muffins with Lemon- A Little Healthier Version at 158 calories
Strawberry-Blueberry Almond Muffins
Peaches and Sour Cream Corn Muffins
KIDS BAKE THANKSGIVING: Ginger Cranberry-Blueberry Muffins
LIFE GOES ON:
It’s been overly hot and smoky here…but it feels (just barely, but still) as if we’re nearly at the tail end of the loooooong heated summer. There’re a few yellow leaves here and there on our little Aspen tree and a church friend yesterday shared that her unusual tall and delicious spinach plant was sporting some orange leaves at the bottom. God be praised. I’m not a hot weather person, you see. Give me cold blowing winds, a little snow, and naked trees, as well as all the time in the world to cook up slow, warming meals to serve with big bottles of lush red wine. If you’re ready for that or live where it’s cooler, go for this:
The light at night doesn’t reach quite as late as it did (hence a few yellow leaves) and I’m even thinking about a pot of chili in the not too distant future though we’re just harvesting our first cherry tomatoes. If you live anywhere else in the country, you’ll find that hard to believe.
Out west, maps like the one below are what we’re often trying to make sense of. After I saved this map from my DIL (my kids live not far from these infernos), another fire broke out near by. Today, they all look much better and evacuation orders are being lifted. There’s hope of a few showers and thunderstorms.
Doing my rain dance still. You might do yours, too. Right after you bake some muffins, that is.
Alyce
P.S. As I go to post this recipe a few days after beginning to write, we’ve been blessed by a couple of good rains, cooler temperatures, and misty mornings. Harbingers of the fall that’s not too far off now. 57 F when I got up this morning. YES!!! And that’s why I love Colorado.
