smitten kitchen » Muffin/Quick Bread

olive oil muffins

deb — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:58:19 +0000

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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whole wheat apple muffins

deb — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:46:04 +0000

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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raspberry-topped lemon muffins

deb — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:19:46 +0000

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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corniest corn muffins

deb — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:37:05 +0000

Some days, I’m pretty sure this site is turning into something of a Dorie Greenspan Fan Club. Let us review, shall we? Dorie brought one of my favorite surprise Paris treats into my very own kitchen, directed us to the most amazing chocolate cookie, ever, her deep, dark ganache tart was the kind of easy dinner party dessert that nobody complains about and just last week, her lemon sables were the ideal palette upon which I could paint my margarita cookie aspirations. Everything you might think you like about my baking, you really like about hers. Today, her latest book ushers in another recipe that I am certain will be a repeat hit (once, of course, I get over my addiction to the shiny and the new).

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skillet irish soda bread

deb — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:43:02 +0000

I was incapable of resisting. Despite the fact that the last New York Times recipe that burned such a hole in my monitor that I had to try it ASAP was a caustic disaster, I hold no grudges against the Gray Lady. Not when she, or more specifically Melissa Clark, graces the pages with what she considers the ultimate soda bread, “baked in a heavy iron skillet so that the top and bottom crusts become crunchy and browned while the center stays tender and pale, studded with treacly bits of raisins.”

I’ve never made Irish soda bread before and eaten it almost as rarely, so I can’t offer a review with any authority, but what I loved about this article is neither could Clark. She was told by a friend married to an Irishman and living in his country that though her version was rich and lovely, it neither looked nor tasted like the real deal. Apparently, nobody in Ireland serves real soda bread anymore, she said, and even if they did, it would have no raisins, eggs, butter or caraway seeds. After trying a version faithful to the original and finding it delicious when warm, but hard, dry and bland when cold, Clark decided being authentic was overrated, and went back to her old formula.

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sour cream bran muffins

deb — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:51:48 +0000

To celebrate my sister-in-law’s swearing in to the New York bar on Monday, we went to Blue Smoke for lunch. I ordered a pulled pork sandwiched stacked about as high as my chin, and in a frightening act of who-is-this-girl and what-did-you-do-with-Deb, finished all but one or two bites of it. Later, we (mercifully) spent some quality time at the gym, and at the exact moment that Alex said “Mmm… leftover applewood-smoked chicken for dinner!” I realized not only was I still full, I had the dreaded Meat Hangover.

We all detox differently. Some of us imbibe themselves with (I’m sorry, somewhat frightening) Master Cleanses for weeks on end, others eschew breads, starches or noodles for as long as they can keep away, and a good lot of us chug water and chomp crudites till the bad feelings pass. But my Meat Hangover, like all of my other afflictions, came with very specific instructions: fruit salad, yogurt and whole grains, and I was too glutted to argue.

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pumpkin muffins

deb — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:45:32 +0000

See, now I’m a girl who keeps my promises, eh? About everything but picking up the dry-cleaning, at least. As I expected, these pumpkin muffins were a cinch, which is good, because I expect that from my muffins. They should max out at two bowls for prep, you should be able to mix them by hand and there shouldn’t be any excessively difficult steps. It’s not rocket science.

This recipe was all of that, plus, I discovered something – you know how they always say not to over-mix muffins? A large wire whisk, when mixing by hand, really allows you to incorporate all of the drying ingredients quickly without mashing them up too much. It’s made it much harder to overdo it, despite my better efforts.

And now, the part where I am a moron, because what entry would be complete without a little self-deprecation? Evidence the first: the recipe calls for a solid-pack pumpkin puree. What did I buy? Pumpkin pie filling; you know, the stuff doctored up with sugar and spices and some crap with a lot of letters. In my first attempt at the batter, I had already mixed the sugar with the eggs and oil when I realized the pumpkin already had enough sugar. So, I dumped it (please don’t ask where, because the state of our kitchen drain is unappetizing at best). But, then it turned out that maybe the pumpkin pie filling didn’t have enough sugar, but at this point (evidence the second) I had run out. Of sugar. It baffled me too. The muffins could use some more, both sugar and spice, which was by the way the other thing that I skipped, assuming the pie filling had enough. Well, meh, not enough for my tastes.

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