Beet Cornbread Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Beets give these muffins their distinctive bright color but the corn and cornmeal mellow the beety flavor making these muffins light and delicious. 

When I starting dating my husband more than 30 years ago, he would not eat three things: olives, beets and asparagus. He’s overcome his dislike of olives and asparagus, and actually really likes them both, but I am still working on getting him to eat beets. When I saw this recipe in the free supermarket (Waitrose) recipe booklet, it seemed worth a try. Let me just admit right now that he wasn’t crazy about these muffins. But my friend Glenys and I, beet lovers both, really liked them. I'll just keep on trying.

Ingredients
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons or 200g fine cornmeal or polenta
Generous pinch dried chili flakes or crushed red peppers
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 heaped cup or 195g canned corn, drained
8 2/3 oz or 245g cooked beets (I bought these in a vacuum pack in the supermarket – four small to medium-sized beets)
1/4 cup or 50g butter, melted and cooled
Scant 2/3 cup or 150g thick, Greek-style yogurt
2 large eggs

Method
Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by lining it with paper muffin cups or greasing it.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your cornmeal with dried red pepper, baking powder and salt.

Puree your corn and beets together in a food processor or with a hand blender until relatively smooth. A few corn kernels left here and there are fine.

Add in the eggs, yogurt and melted butter and process or blend again.

Pour the wet ingredients into dry mixture and stir until well combined.

Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

These make a great addition to any brunch or luncheon menu.

Enjoy!

Pink Lady and Walnut Muffins #MuffinMonday #glutenfree

Walnuts and beautiful Pink Lady apple chunks bake up lovely in gluten-free muffins for the perfect breakfast or snack. 

This week I am blessed to be staying at a dear friend’s house in London. We’ve settled my younger daughter in her temporary housing for her summer internship, with a new sim card for her phone and some essential toiletries. Hard goodbyes were made easier by plans to meet again for dinner later in the week. So now it’s time to play. We are off today on the train to Brighton to visit my friend’s daughter and treat her to lunch. Since it’s Muffin Monday, we decided to make some muffins to take along for the trip.

Ingredients
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups or 240g gluten-free flour blend (I used Dove’s Farm.)
1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup or 60g walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large Pink Lady apple
2 tablespoon brown sugar for topping, optional

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, canola and vanilla extract.

Peel, core then chop the apple.

Aren't the Pink Ladies just the most beautiful apples?

Add it immediately to the egg/buttermilk mixture, stirring well to make sure all the little pieces of the apple are covered so they don’t turn brown.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, xanthum gum, sugar, baking powder, baking powder, walnuts and salt.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and top each with a sprinkle of brown sugar, if desired.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Fresh Rhubarb Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Fresh rhubarb is tart and wonderful in baked goods, from pies to crumbles to muffins. These will start your morning off right! 

Twenty-one years ago today, we were enjoying a warm summer day in Paris and the festivities of the Bastille Day holiday, counting down the days to the scheduled caesarean section that would bring our second daughter into the world. Since she was being born in France, I had tried to convince the doctor that Le Quatorze Juillet would be an appropriate day for her birthday, so we could celebrate her and La Belle France every year with fireworks, picnics and overhead aerial displays. But he wasn’t having any of it, the party pooper. What’s the point of being able to choose your child’s birthday if you can’t pick a fun date, right? As it turns out, we moved away from Paris before she turned two years old so the 14th of July lost significance in our daily lives. But it still comes to mind every year as we prepare to celebrate our daughter's birthday.

Reminiscing about Paris also makes me think of rhubarb. I’ve told the story briefly here, about the late discovery of rhubarb in our Paris garden. Ever since that time, I’ve made every effort to take advantage of it when I see it in my market or nearby grocery store. Rhubarb is the best and it’s one of our favorite things.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup or 160ml canola or other light oil
3/4 cup or 180ml buttermilk (or almost 3/4 cup milk plus 2 teaspoons vinegar)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 130g chopped fresh rhubarb

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Put liners in the muffin cups or grease them well with butter or non-stick spray.

Cut your rhubarb into pieces, about 1cm or 1/2 inch wide. Set aside the prettiest 12 for decorating the tops before baking.

Whisk together your flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

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Whisk together the canola, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs in another bowl, until combined well.

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Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. There should be a little dry flour still showing. Gently fold in your sliced rhubarb.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups.   Decorate each with a pink piece of rhubarb.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

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Enjoy! To my French friends, I also say, Bonne Fête Nationale!

And a very happy birthday to my good friend, Margaret, who does indeed share a birthday with France. I'm sure the fireworks are just for you, MJ!

Two more rhubarb recipes for your enjoyment! 

Rhubarb Nectarine Puff Pastry Tarts

Not the prettiest, but this one is delicious and easy!

Rhubarb Apple Ginger Crumble

Mocha Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Dark cocoa and espresso powder combine to make the deepest, darkest mocha muffins you might ever enjoy. Perfect for breakfast or a mid-morning pick-me-up.

I don’t understand people who don’t like coffee. One of my best and earliest childhood memories is sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen while she prepared my coffee milk the old fashioned way, warming milk in a tiny pot on the stove and adding coffee and, of course, sugar. If I close my eyes on any given morning, while I am taking that first warming sip, I can smell her old wood framed house, the gas stove and the lingering aroma of sulfur and smoke from the match that lit it. I miss that and I miss her. But at least I still have coffee.

This week I am in coffee mode, after receiving the pdf of a cookbook called Passion for Coffee (<affiliate link) and spending many delicious hours reading through it and bookmarking recipes to try. This muffin is not from that book but the steak with wine-balsamic glaze I’ll share on Thursday surely is. I just can’t get coffee out of my head! Muffins help.

Where do you stand on coffee? Love, hate, indifferent?

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1/4 cup or 20g unsweetened baking cocoa (I used the Hershey’s Special Dark.)
1/8 cup or 8g espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional: 12 dark chocolate kisses for decorating before baking

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Butter your muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, canola and vanilla.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups.

Press one kiss into each cup of batter, if using.

Bake in your preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Figgy Jam Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Fig jam adds a lovely sweetness to these fluffy muffins. Smear on a little more butter and call these breakfast or mid-morning snack. Perfect with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

This summer, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t go home home, to the little town where I was born. The town of homemade Tabasco sauce and fig preserves, of TG&Y and Easter baskets, of Christmas stockings and eggnog, of grape Crush and Maytag service calls, of vegetable gardens and crawfish, of freedom and backyard bonfires, of first cousins and bubblegum snow cones. Some of my happiest childhood memories hang like Spanish moss from ancient oaks in the New Iberia city park on the Bayou Teche. No matter where I live, I always go home home each summer to visit my grandparents, until finally, last summer, in my 51st year, I didn’t have one anymore.

A few years ago, I happened to be there over the Fourth of July holiday and it occurred to me that it had probably been years since my grandparents had seen fireworks. So we loaded up the car and found ourselves a spot on the bayou that would give us a good view of the city show. We took the seats out of the back of the minivan and set them up like comfy chairs for the old folks to sit on. And together, four generations ooohed and aaahed in the rockets’ red glare, some of us still children, all of us like kids again.

Part of the joy of writing this blog is the satisfaction that comes from searching my own memory and making connections with my heritage and those old folks I miss, even while adapting to what I have available. Figs weren’t wonderful this summer and the sad few I did buy and eat seemed weirdly dry and flavorless, so there was no point in making preserves. But I couldn’t let the season pass without something figgy to enjoy, even if it meant using store-bought jam. As the saying goes, needs must.

Ingredients 

2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/3 cup or 75g butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup or 160g fig jam
1/2 cup or 120ml milk

To garnish: Several dried Black Mission figs, optional

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Butter your muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the egg, melted butter, fig jam and milk

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups.

Top with a slice of soft dried Mission fig, if desired.

Bake in your preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until golden.

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy! If you celebrate Fourth of July, who are you watching the fireworks with this year?

They smell soooo good!