I’ve been having bakers withdrawl since hubs has been fasting from sweets… who else am I going to pawn all my goodies off to if not the hubs? Usually he has his fair share and takes the leftovers to work, but he has been gone so the oven has been cold and my pans and mixing bowls have been quite sedentary. Until last night.
Often I peruse food websites late at night because I’m a glutton for punishment. I love drooling over beautiful pics of food at midnight, wishing the cheese stick or cookie I am nibbling on would taste half as good. Sometimes I jump up and turn on the oven and othertimes I just continue to dream. While perusing this week I came across this recipe on Williams Sonoma for blackberry muffins and I just knew I had to try it! For one, it’s not an overtly sweet recipe and for 2, we have (had) frozen blackberries in the freezer!
sugar pecan crumble topping
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3 Tbsp all purpose flour
- zest of 1/2 lemon
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1/3 cup pecans, finely chopped
Cooking Directions
- in a small bowl, stir together the sugar, flour and lemon zest. Stir in the melted butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add the pecans and stir to combine. Set aside.
blackberry muffins
Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- zest from 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 cups fresh blackberries (or 2-1/2 cups frozen unsweetened blackberries)
Cooking Directions
- Preheat an oven to 375°F. Grease 12 standard muffin cups with butter or butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray.
- in a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, lemon zest and salt. Make a well in the center and add the egg, melted butter and buttermilk. Stir just until evenly moistened. The batter will be slightly lumpy. Sprinkle with the blackberries and gently fold in with a large rubber spatula just until evenly distributed, no more than a few strokes. Take care not to break up the fruit. Do not overmix.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each to a bit above the rim of the cup. Top each muffin with the topping, dividing it evenly (the sugar will melt and produce a glaze effect).
- Bake until the muffins are golden, dry and springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Unmold the muffins. Serve warm or at room temperature, with butter.
I should probably take a cue that baking at night (and on a time limit – I was having a Skype date with the bestie) is probably not a practice I should take up regularly.
Apparently I have a hard time reading directions while under duress (I might be stretching it to say that being a few minutes late to my Skype date qualifies as conditions of duress…). The directions specifically state to add the sugary pecan topping to the muffins before baking them, not after.
Oops.
No wonder I couldn’t get the topping to “melt” and form a glaze.
I was also annoyed at the mess it was making when the sugar failed to adhere to the muffin tops, so much so that I nuked it a few times in an effort to make it more syrupy…
I guess the bright side is that since most of it fell off, they were a tad healthier without the extra sugar!
I gave two to our maintenance man, two to our mail man, I ate two, and I sent the rest with hubs to work this morning. And it’s a good thing because another day in this house and I would have finished them off!
