Sunday, February 27, 2011

Cran-Orange Buckwheat Muffin Nirvana

Last week, I attained nirvana in two forms: swooshing down the slopes of Winter Park, CO and eating these muffins. I'm not sure which was better. Colorado had mountains and beer and good friends . . . but the muffins had fresh cranberries! And orange zest! And if I looked at them long enough, they would tell me jokes! That's like being with friends, no? 
Seriously, though, these muffs were tight - er, delish. High in fiber, bursting with fresh fruit, and relatively low in sugar (and can be dairy free if you stick with just oil). Despite the fact that this blog might be what you call sugar-heavy, I try not to use sugar needlessly. Sure, I use gobs of confectioners sugar in my frosting (though less than most standard recipes or anything you would find on a grocery store shelf), because let's face it, if you're eating frosting, ya ain't tryin' to cut down on your sugar. At least not for that particular indulgence. But when it comes to something like a muffin, why use more sugar than you need to?

A standard muffin recipe is for twelve muffins. I routinely see recipes calling for 2/3, 3/4 or even 1 cup of sugar. This is more than you need! Depending on the recipe, it might be for a large volume of batter (even if it says only 12 muffins), in which case you can either make ginormo muffins or 18-24 normal-sized guys. In that case, maybe the additional sugar is warranted. But for your regular twelve-slot tin, with muffins that bake up one or two centimeters above the rim, 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar per batch is plenty.
 
In case you haven't noticed, I love me some fruits in my baked goods, which helps to naturally sweeten things. In this recipe, even with supertart cranberries, 1/3 cup of sugar was enough to balance out the tartness and sweeten the muffins. And if you're baking muffins with a sweeter fruit, like apples, blueberries or (especially) bananas, 1/3 cup of sugar will definitely be fine. If you're making a straight bran muffin or maybe a lemon-poppy seed, you might want to up the sugar to 1/2 cup. I've found that you can cut the sugar in a recipe without making any other changes. So if you see a good recipe that calls for more sugar than you need, take liberties with your sweetener.

But Kaaaaatie, what if I like a reallllly want a sweet muffin? Then quit your whining and go eat a cupcake, because a muffin's not what you're looking for. Kidding. If you want to make a batch of sweet-treat muffins, use your sugar where it counts - on top. Your taste buds will get more bang for their buck with a sprinkling of sugar on top of each muffin than if you were to add twice as much directly into the batter (this is a great tip for those who like sweet cornbread - skip the honey or sugar in the mix and sprinkle the top with a few pinches of raw sugar). For a crumb topping, mix 3 tablespoons of brown sugar with 1 tablespoon of melted butter and distribute evenly over muffins.
 

And for kicks, here are some pics of my other nirvana. These are the good friends:
  

 This is me and the mountain (don't worry- it didn't take me down every time):

. . . and these are the beers!

Cran-Orange Buckwheat Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

3/4 cups buckwheat flour
1-1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup ground blueberry flaxseed (optional)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 plain nonfat yogurt (or another 1/4 cup of oil)
2 tbs. orange zest
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups fresh cranberries (or frozen and thawed)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all ingredients well, adding cranberries last. Fill cups of a standard muffin tin 3/4 full. Bake for 23-27 minutes. Find your own nirvana.

4 comments:

  1. Correction from original post: the recipe as written is not dairy free (I forgot that I subbed in yogurt for half the oil). Sorry!

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  2. Ummmm, the only way the trip could have been better is if you had made these muffins while we were there.

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  3. Made these yesterday and they were great. (Also worth noting they work with blueberries if your local grocery store is out of fresh cranberries)

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  4. These are some decent cupcakes. Err muffins! ;-) I didn't add the blueberry flaxseed (honestly, don't even know what that is). And my orange didn't yield a cup of orange juice, so I settled for about 1/4 cup fresh squeezed Sunkist (a big, fat one, too!), plus a bit of Simple Truth Organic Passion Fruit flavored juice blend (which is mostly apple but has some mango, pear, peach, and, yes, passionfruit) and s1/2 c. R.W. Knudsen Family Simply Nutritious Mega Antioxidant juice (apple, carrot, peach and lemon juice) [1/4 c. each, I think]. I left as much pulp from the orange as I could, scraping it without getting too much pith. I used walnut oil instead of canola. [I actually think that if you're gonna use yogurt, you might as well melt some butter, though! And, because they were flat, probably at least one beaten egg while you're at it.] Both times I used dried, sweetened cranberries. The first time, though, according to some other recipe, I soaked them in the juice - which is a good idea I forgot the second go 'round. So, if one is using dried, yes, soak them in the juice to get a better texture - at least 1/2 an hour.

    The first time, I forgot the vanilla. I thought that made a difference - but it really didn't. The second time, I used a really nice Madagascar vanilla, but I noticed absolutely no change in the flavor!

    But perhaps it was 'cause I changed the recipe up a little more. I didn't and still don't have any whole wheat pastry flour. The first time, per the internet, I used half and half whole wheat (but red fife) and all purpose. The second time, I thought I'd be a bit creative and use half finely ground whole wheat, some semolina, and the remaining 1/4 c. all purpose.

    Sprinkling the sugar on top is absolutely necessary. The second time, the muffins themselves were pretty boring. Perhaps it was the semolina, but while I thought the 1/3 c. sugar would be too much given all the sugar in the juice and cranberries (I may have only used 1/4 c. the first time), they were not as moist nor, for lack of a better term, interesting.

    Now, if I were making this dairy free, I wouldn't add more oil, but would add an equal amount of applesauce. In fact, if one is going for a low fat diet (not that these are "diet" mind you, but if one is trying to avoid fats and oils), subbing applesauce for all the oil would be fine.

    Perhaps one of these days I'll break down and buy the whole wheat pastry flour. I'm not sure if the semolina for all purpose was a problem, but I probably wouldn't try it again with this recipe.

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