Sour Cream Muffins with Lemon and Candied Ginger
FYI: Cuisinart is recalling millions of faulty blades for their food processors. If your machine has a riveted blade, please check the link below, as it can break into your food while processing. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this is.
Cuisinart will replace your blade. Please check here.
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Ten days before Christmas…actually later, by the time you read this, and the IK finally deigns to post a quasi-holiday recipe. So very helpful.
So you’re wondering about the green paper. Well even if you weren’t, you are now, right? It’s like this: muffins aren’t photogenic. Nor are they responsive to the usual appearance-enhancing tricks. No carefully strewn parsley, no minced scallion. Those gaily colored sprinkles are meant for desserts. And muffins, contrary to the beliefs of some chain coffeeshops, are not dessert.
Atop this, as the IK writes, it is pouring down rain, making for a dark day. Here at the IK Photo Studios, we rely on natural lighting. No, friends, we haven’t fallen prey to the Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. We simply haven’t the space for artificial lighting.
Which brings us, albeit wordily, back to the green paper.
Last night, a very nice person sent a Christmas delivery of fancy foods, exquisitely boxed, beribboned, and enfolded–you guessed it–in this pretty paper. The IK espied it, still holding its gift of pears, and thought, hmm.
It’s a nice departure from the usual, anyway.
In other exciting IK news, our muffins feature an ingredient new to the IK kitchens. Welcome, candied ginger.
Candied ginger fancies up workaday muffins, a recipe that was the first to appear on this blog. This being the holidays, milk is also fancied up, becoming sour cream. Citrus becomes the more deeply flavored Meyer lemon, if available in your area. If not, plain lemons are fine, too.
These muffins are easy to make, requiring little more than two bowls, a spoon, and a few minutes, a convenience when you’re feeding visitors, some of whom may be children. That ginger is a known tummy soother can only help when dealing with the travel weary or holiday over-indulgers. But we don’t know anyone like that around here.
Sour Cream Muffins with Candied Ginger and Lemon
Adapted From Joy Of Cooking
yield 12 muffins
Baking time: 20-45 minutes, depending on your oven
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream or full-fat plain yogurt (see notes, below)
Scant 1/2 cup granulated sugar (increase to 3/4 cup for a sweeter muffin)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 stick unsalted butter
1-2 large lemons, juiced, Meyer if possible (amount depends on how juicy your lemons are; you want about 1 tablespoon lemon juice)
approximately 2 ounces candied ginger, chopped finely (this need not be a perfect measure)
Muffins will bake more evenly ingredients are at room temperature before beginning.
Preheat oven to 400F.
Fill a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin cups, or butter well lavishly. Nonstick spray can also be used.
Have two large mixing bowls ready: mine are 4-quart size.
Mix or whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt in the first bowl until blended. Set aside.
In the second bowl, whisk eggs, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla until well blended.
Melt butter in pan or microwave until just melted, not boiling hot. Pour slowly into wet ingredients, whisking continually. You don’t want to scramble the eggs with hot butter. Add remaining butter, whisking, until fully blended into wet ingredients.
Pour wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients. Blend wet with dry quickly, using a large metal or wooden spoon. Stir until batter is just combined. A few lumps are okay.
Using a two-tablespoon measuring spoon, ice-cream scoop, or a regular spoon, portion batter into the muffin tin. I find a spatula helpful for easing batter off spoon.
Bake muffins 15-20 minutes. Mine are usually done at 17 minutes; a tester will come out clean.
Cool on a rack. Muffins will keep at room temperature 2 days. They freeze beautifully in zippered freezer bags.
Notes: any dairy will work here, from skim milk to heavy cream. If you use skim milk or regular milk, you don’t need to use baking soda. But for any other dairy product, use both baking powder and baking soda to ensure the muffins rise properly.
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