smitten kitchen

These muffins are a labor of love, which is what I think you are supposed to call things that take a bit more work than you’d originally anticipated. I’m not sure if this muffin is to blame, however. You see, we’ve come to expect that muffins, or so-called “quick breads” are indeed speedy to put together so when one takes the smallest amount more time, it may feel like a chore. Especially if you do not do handsprings of joy over the results, which I confess I did not do immediately.

But today. Today I woke up and had one of these muffins and while I might be too sleepy, curmudgeonly and also feeling a zillion years too old to literally get my heels over head, I most certainly was on the inside because these are unexpectedly delicious. There’s so much going on, toasted ground fennel seeds scenting a hearty muffin base, a creamy ricotta and tangy sour cream (or crème fraîche, if you’re fancy) center and a hefty lid sprinkled with pecans that have been toasted nearly to the point of caramelization. The muffin itself has the kind of curiously crisp-edged crumb you get when you bake without eggs and while not savory, it’s not sweet either, a relief for people who find the first stroke of the morning to be a bit too early for the day’s first dessert.

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There are biscuits and there are biscuits. There are biscuits that you serve with chili, with barbecue or alongside some eggs and grits. And there are biscuits that you bring out in a warmed basket with a cloth napkin draped over them at a dinner party, to sop up a braise or slather with honey-butter. These biscuits are of the latter variety but I suspect they will quickly become your one and only biscuit because if you’re anything like me, you’ll wonder where they’ve been your whole life.

Because they’re so easy, it might feel like you are cheating: Five ingredients. A sifter, a mixing bowl and a puddle of melted butter. (That’s so going to be my first album title, I’ve decided.) Three minutes to assemble and twelve minutes to bake. And they remain the richest, lightest biscuits I’ve ever had, with serious plushness within and the faintest crunch at the edges, which sound as you tear one open as if you’d broken a cookie in half but then turned the volume on that sound way down. Or, uh, a very faint crunch.

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You all have no idea how close I was to dropping this charade of daily posting each November tonight. Because I was over it? Sadly, not close. (I’m apparently a glutton for punishment.) No, it was because I just plain forgot. Some friends came over for dinner (fantastic dinner, mind you, just you wait until I get those pictures off the camera!) and it got late and tired and whoops!

That pretty much brings us up to now, and some muffins I made a couple weeks back. They’re from Giada DeLaurentis’s old show (the one where her cooking was “Italian” and not simply “Italian influenced”) and the moment I saw them, I knew I had to try them. Not very different from a standard muffin, the cool part is the oil is olive and not something neutral. I dug that she didn’t try to hide its flavor, and I really enjoyed the balsamic pick-me-up.

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Sometimes on Fridays, my fingers actually get too tired to type even one more word and I am forced to do prehistoric things like pick up a phone to have a conversation. Seeing as it’s been one of those weeks–and I don’t have all of your numbers–I hope you’ll accept some gratuitous photos of these blissful muffins I made earlier this week in lieu of more than a two word description.*

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Oh my god, people. Just OMG. Let’s just make this one succinct, for once? Surely, I am capable of concise thought, right? These muffins are the shockingly good. Make them.

That’s not enough? Fine. Two lemons worth of grated peel are muddled into a paste with sugar, and that sugar is used to bake a simple buttermilk and vanilla muffin that is topped with a whole fresh raspberry. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is, but the flavor is anything but. The lemon peel gives what should be a sweet, harmless muffin a bitter, intense edge, and the raspberry, an almost sour contrast whose impact rivals the best blueberry muffin you’ve ever had. What I once thought was my favorite approach to lemon cake is no longer. There’s a new muffin in town.

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