This past weekend, I indulged myself with a lazy Sunday morning brunch, including a pot of tea and a batch of freshly-baked muffins. Great muffins with dried cherries, that I want to share with you. They’re both easy and delicious, and I expect they’ll become a standard around here. Don’t have dried cherries? Use something else. They’d be good with blueberries, or raisins, or those dried cranberry things, or just plain with a bit of honey.
A note on the recipe source: These muffins are adapted from Tyler Florence’s Real Kitchen by (of course) Tyler Florence. He includes poppy seeds, which I omitted because they get stuck between my teeth.
preparation
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin with butter. In a small bowl, toss the dried cherries with a bit of flour, which will help prevent them from sinking to the bottoms of the muffins.
measure and mix together
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until it’s evenly combined. In another bowl or a largish measuring cup, whisk together the milk and eggs, then add in the melted butter and orange zest. Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet, then fold everything together to make a batter. Work quickly, and don’t overbeat: you don’t want tough muffins. Fold in the floured cherries.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, filling the muffin cups 3/4 full. If you like, you might sprinkle the tops of the muffins with some extra sugar – if you do, make it the coarse crunchy stuff – but I did not, and the result was very fine.
bake at 400˚F
Bake 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden and a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the center muffin. Let cool in the pan undisturbed for 5-10 minutes, then tip the muffins to expose the bottoms to cool thoroughly – except, of course, for the ones you snag to eat when they’re still warm. Those are the best for a lazy brunch.
Muffins with Dried Cherries
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick butter)
- 2 cups + 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour, divided (1 Tbsp for tossing with the cherries)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- zest of 1 orange, finely grated
- 1 cup dried cherries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400˚F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin with butter. In a small bowl, toss the dried cherries with a bit of flour, which will help prevent them from sinking to the bottoms of the muffins.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until it’s evenly combined. In another bowl or a largish measuring cup, whisk together the milk and eggs, then add in the melted butter and orange zest. Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet, then fold everything together to make a batter. Work quickly, and don’t overbeat: you don’t want tough muffins. Fold in the floured cherries, leaving any excess flour behind.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, filling the muffin cups 3/4 full. If you like, you might sprinkle the tops of the muffins with some extra sugar – if you do, make it the coarse crunchy stuff – but I did not, and the result was very fine.
- Bake at 400˚F 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden and a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the center muffin. Let cool in the pan undisturbed for 5-10 minutes, then tip the muffins to expose the bottoms to cool thoroughly – except, of course, for the ones you snag to eat when they’re still warm.