Brown Sugar Cinnamon Muffins with Pecan Filling #MuffinMonday

I’ve got another special one for you this week!  And it smells just like Christmas.

The original recipe for this Muffin Monday was a delightful one that called for rolling the batter in cinnamon sugar like a snickerdoodle.  But it also sounded much more like making cake batter than muffins, with its creaming the butter and adding the eggs one at a time, then adding the flour and sour cream in alternating steps.  Not that it was too complicated, but muffins, for me, should require that I dirty only two bowls:  One for dry ingredients and one for the wet ones.  And certainly should not involve my beloved Kenwood mixer.

So I adapted the recipe to fit the appropriate muffin pattern:  Mix dry.  Mix wet.  Add wet to dry.  But since we are still in the holiday series of Muffin Monday, I couldn’t leave it at that!  So I dirtied another bowl for you, good people, and made some pecan filling as well.  Because I love you.  And, because Christmas is coming, I made some cinnamon sugar for the topping in snickerdoodle fashion.  Yes, we are really pushing the boat out in the lead up to Christmas!

These would be great on Christmas morning.  Your components can be made ahead of time and mixed together in the morning while your oven preheats.  (Just put the eggs/milk/sour cream mixture in the refrigerator overnight and substitute canola oil for the butter.)  Overachievers can even prepare the muffin tin ahead of time.  You know who you are!

Ingredients
For the muffin batter:
2 cups or 250g all purpose flour
3/4 cup or 170g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml sour cream
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter, melted and cooled or canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs

For the pecan cinnamon filling:
1 rounded 1/4 cup or 35g plain flour
1 rounded tablespoon or 15g soft unsalted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt (a good pinch)
1/2 cup or 75g pecans
1/2 cup or 60ml Karo or golden syrup (I used clear Karo.)

For the topping:
3 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
12 pecan halves

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your 12-cup muffin pan or line with muffin papers.

Chop the pecans for your filling finely, either by hand or in a food processor.

The food processor is soooo much easier.  

Mix them in a bowl with the rest of the filling ingredients.  This will end up quite a sturdy paste.  Set aside.

In a large bowl mix together your flour, dark brown sugar, baking powder, salt and then grate in your nutmeg.

In a smaller bowl, whisk your milk, sour cream, vanilla, melted butter or oil and eggs.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Using a scoop or a tablespoon, put about two tablespoons of batter into each prepared muffin cup.

Evenly distribute the pecan filling among the muffin cups.  Gently press it down into the batter.

Top with the remaining batter.

Put one pecan half on the top of the batter in each cup, gently pressing it down as well.

Mix three tablespoons of sugar with one teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle liberally over all of the muffin cups.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove the muffins from the muffin pan and cool further on a rack.

Enjoy!

Bananas Foster Muffins #MuffinMonday

Banana muffins filled and topped with a bananas Foster sauce of brown sugar, rum and pecans! These are a decadent breakfast or a handheld dessert!

We have entered the MuffinMonday Holiday Series where Anuradha from Baker Street has challenged us to not only bake some great muffins, but to kick them up a notch into FESTIVENESS.  I am all excited about this because, with the move to Dubai, I have not spent much time thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas and I am counting on this challenge to put me in the MOOD, baby.

Our muffin recipe this week is traditional banana bread from Food Network.  So, in the spirit of festivity, I decided to make a banana muffin inspired by the New Orleans classic Bananas Foster, originally created by Chef Paul for Brennan’s Restaurant.  If you are not familiar with it, Brennan’s is the sort of restaurant where people celebrate Special Occasions (And, yes, the capitalization was deliberate!  Those kinds of Occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries, graduations and even engagements.) and Bananas Foster is their most popular dessert.  The wonderful caramelized, rum-infused banana sauce is supposed to be served over vanilla ice cream.  I have added chopped pecans and folded it through the muffin batter, then saved a little for a topping.

I am still baking in the serviced apartment kitchen here in Dubai, but the good news is that all our appliances are being delivered and installed shortly, so by the time you read this, we will be in our new home.  Then my helper can join us once more.  Regular readers will know that means the Boxer dog, who stayed behind in Cairo having a puppy sleepover with his friend, Marley, until we were in the house and his paperwork could be completed.  It's only been a few days but I miss his fuzzy face.

Beso and his buddy, Marley.

Bananas Foster Muffins

Ingredients
For the Bananas Foster sauce:
3 tablespoons or 45g butter
1/2 cup or 100g dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 banana
3 tablespoons rum
3/4 cup chopped pecans

For the muffin:
1 ripe banana
1 large egg
1/3 cup or 70g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
3/4 cup or 170g granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.   Thoroughly butter a 12-cup muffin tin.  You can use muffin liners but some of the sticky caramel banana might end up staying stuck on them when they are removed.  Which would be a doggone shame.

Cut your sauce banana in about 1/2 in or 1 cm slices.

Combine the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for the sauce in a flambé pan or skillet.

Place the pan on a low heat, and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar dissolves.

 Add the bananas to the pan.

Turn the heat up a little, until the melted sugar is bubbling slowly.

When the banana sections soften, carefully add the rum.  You are supposed to light the rum by tipping the pan, but I was working on an electric stove and a match did not do the trick.  Give it a try but don’t worry if your rum won’t light.

Remove from the heat and add in the chopped pecans.  Stir well.

Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon for the muffin in a large bowl.

In another smaller bowl, mash the remaining banana and whisk in the egg and milk and melted butter.

Pour your wet mixture into your dry ingredients and stir gently until just mixed.  This should seem a bit dry.

Still in the pan, separate your caramel banana sauce into approximately, two-thirds and one-third.  No need to measure exactly.

Gently fold the two-thirds amount into the batter.   Divide between the prepared muffin cups.

See!  It got a lot wetter with the addition of the sauce.  It's all good. 

Top each with a share of the remaining caramel banana sauce.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for about five minutes in the muffin tin and them remove to a rack to finish cooling.

These are sticky and chewy and delicious.  A right celebratory muffin.

Enjoy!

Go ahead!  Take a bite!

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Apricot Pumpkin Muffins #MuffinMonday

The news is getting out so I might as well tell the world here.  It hasn’t even been a year and we are moving again!  We have loved Cairo and would happily stay here for many more years but my dear husband got a job offer that was too good to refuse and we are loading up the camels and heading to Dubai.

We travel light!  Yeah. Right.  Don't I wish!

The United Arab Emirates was our very first long term (read: more than just a few months) posting after we got married so it sort of feels like coming home.  That said, I am fully expecting not to recognize anything though because, by all accounts, Dubai has grown and changed enormously, even in the last few years.  I have been house hunting online today and reading all about the marvelous grocery stores and, as much as I will miss Cairo and the people here (and our lovely home) I am starting to get just a little excited about the move.  Kind of like being pregnant and excited about the baby, while dreading the actual labor, which is the painful process of packing and unpacking in this analogy.  I hate moving.  But I love baking muffins.  So let’s just do that today instead.

This week's muffins are from Celebrating Quick Breads and Pastries and were originally an orange pumpkin muffin with some walnuts for topping.  You know I had to put some walnuts inside as well and I decided that chewy bits of apricot would be better than orange.  I don’t know if I am right about better, but they sure were delicious.

Ingredients for about 16 muffins
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1/2 cup or 100g firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 50g walnuts plus extra walnut halves for garnish before baking
8 dried apricots
1 egg
1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil
1 1/2 cups or 180ml canned pumpkin

Method
Grease your muffin pans or line with paper baking cups.  Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

In a small bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Chop your apricots and walnuts and add them to the dry ingredients.

Use a couple of forks or your fingers to separate the apricot pieces from each other if they are sticking together.

In a large bowl, combine the eggs and oil with the pumpkin.   Beat until well blended.

Fold the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Spoon or scoop the batter into prepared pans filling each cup two thirds full.  Top each with half a walnut.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Remove from pans, serve warm or cool on wire rack.

Now wasn’t that more fun than moving house?!

Enjoy!