Upside-Down Pear

This morning, I went looking for coffee cake recipes. I found one that at first glance, looked interesting, but on a deeper read…well, I thought it would be pretty dreadful. I was too lazy to look up more, though, so instead I altered it on the fly into some tasty muffins.

Spicy Winter Muffins

dry ingredients
2-1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c crystallized ginger
1/2 c diced dried apricots
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder

wet ingredients
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or clabbered milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix by muffin method.

Bake in greased muffin tin, 20-22 minutes for regular muffins, 25-28 minutes for large muffins, or until a knife stuck in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Yield: 12 regular muffins, or 6 large muffins.

The “muffin method” is very simple: mix dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in another. Add wet to dry and stir until just combined. (Yes, this will be lumpy.)

That’s all. If you do this properly, you will never know the sadness of a tough chewy muffin. Instead, all your muffins will be tender and delicious.

These particular muffins are true to their coffee cake heritage, and are scandalously delicious split and buttered, with a mug of joe on the side.