Weekly Dish

When I got married, one of the most thoughtful gifts I received was from a family friend with whom I happened to be working at the time. During our time as co-workers, Beth apparently noticed my insatiable passion for muffins, and for my office shower, she brought me a very cute basket, packed with a muffin tin, brightly colored dish cloths, and a little cookbook called Muffins, A to Z. Today, the cloths are faded and worn, and I’ve made almost every muffin recipe in the book. Every time I mix up a new batch of batter, I can’t help but think about sweet Beth who paid such careful attention to my love of these small breakfast wonders.

I really love all kinds of muffins–sweet, savory, fruit, chocolate, light, dense–you name it, and I’ve tried it. I have some old favorites that I return to, of course, but I’m always on the lookout for new ideas. When my sweet friend Rorie of Milk & Honey posted a scone recipe using Meyer lemons and cranberries several weeks ago, I knew I wanted to hi-jack that flavor combination for muffins.

The lemon flavor is clean and light, not too overpowering, and the cranberries add a nice zip to every other bite. The texture is cake-like and moist, as I prefer my muffins, due to the combination of butter and buttermilk for the fat and liquid content.

Perfect for an end-of-winter Saturday morning. In fact, I think I’ll make them again tomorrow.

Lemon-Cranberry Muffins

NOTE: I tried these again with orange zest and juice substituted for the lemon and grated nutmeg for the almond extract with good results!

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
Zest of 2 Meyer lemons, about 1 T.
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6 T. butter
2 large eggs
1/4 t. almond extract
Juice of 1 Meyer lemon, about 1/4 cup
1 cup dried, fresh, or frozen cranberries (I used dried)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and grease your muffin pan. Combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Melt the butter and whisk together quickly with the buttermilk (it helps if the buttermilk is not ice cold); whisk in the eggs. Add the almond extract and lemon juice and stir to blend. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry by adding all at once, folding together until just blended (overmixing will make a tough muffin.) Fold in the cranberries. Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake for 18-22 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Posted: Friday, March 3rd, 2006 at 2:08 pm Filed under: Something Sweet, Breakfast/Brunch, Bread, Muffins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.