Archive for the Category ◊ Muffins ◊

05 Feb 2021 New York Style Coffee Coffeecake

I love New York style coffeecake. For years I have had in mind the perfect New York style coffeecake, and I have tried many recipes in order to produce that coffeecake. What I have in mind is a 1:1 ratio of cake to topping, a coffeecake that is delicious at room temperature, one that stays moist and delicious for a few days, and one that had to be baked in a 9×13 pan. I might finally have achieved my goal, melding hints and bits and pieces of several recipes into this one. The topping in this recipe is based on one in “Cake, I Love You” by Jill O’Connor. The coffee coffeecake portion is only minimally changed from “One Tin Bakes” by Edd Kimber.

YES! This New York Style COFFEE Coffeecake has a coffee swirl running through it and a nice thick layer of New York style coffeecake crumbs on top! Coffeecake just doesn’t get any better.

For New York Style Crumble Topping

320 grams (2 ½ cups) AP flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup white sugar

1 tsp. Kosher salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup unsalted butter

For the Coffee Ripple

100g (1/3 cup) brown sugar

4 tsp. instant espresso powder

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

For the Sour Cream Coffeecake

175 grams (6 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

300 grams (1 ½ cups) sugar

315 grams (2 ½ cups) AP flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

180 ml (3/4 cup) sour cream

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Line 9×11 pan with parchment paper.
  3. First, make the New York Style Crumb Topping first. Mix the flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together in a bowl, and set aside for a minute.
  4. Next, brown the butter. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.  The butter will melt, sizzle a bit, then foam. As it foams, brown specks will form. You want those.  Don’t let the brown specks burn though. 
  5. When butter is nicely browned and smelling a bit like nuts, remove from heat and pour over dry ingredients.
  6. Using a fork, combine the butter and the dry ingredients, until the mixture clumps together. You want clumps! If you don’t have some big clumps, squeeze dough together until you get some.
  7. Pop the crumble topping into the freezer (you can do this the night before, if you’d like).
  8. Next, combine all the ingredients for the coffee ripple and set aside.
  9. Now make the cake.  Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, 4-5 minutes with a stand mixer.
  10. Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.
  11. Combine all the wet ingredients into another bowl and mix well. Set aside.
  12. Add 1/3 of flour mixture to butter sugar mixture and mix well. Add 1/3 of wet mixture and mix well. Repeat two more times to use up all the flour and the wet ingredients.
  13. Spoon ½ (or a bit more) of cake batter into prepared 9×13 pan.
  14. Sprinkle Coffee Ripple mixture over the batter.
  15. Spoon remaining cake batter over Ripple mixture. Cake mixture should completely cover the coffee mixture.
  16. Take the New York Style Crumb topping out of the freezer and sprinkle all over the cake mixture.  The cake should be completely covered by the topping.
  17. Bake for 50 minutes in a preheated 350 F oven.  Check that the middle of the cake is completely done before removing from oven.
  18. Let cake cool at least 20 minutes before removing from pan.
  19. Serve cake warm or at room temperature. Leftover cake will keep 2-3 on counter in a closed container.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.

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12 Oct 2019 Coconut-Banana Muffins
A whole pan full of Coconut Banana Muffins! What better way to start a day? Leftovers keep well, too!

I love muffins and I love all things coconut. I can’t think of anything better on a cool Sunday morning than a warm coconut muffin, a hot latte, some social media, an old fashioned magazine or newspaper, jammies, fluffy slippers…

This recipe makes 12 delicious muffins. The muffins are dense and sweet, the top is crunchy, the banana and coconut combination is heavenly. These muffins keep well on the counter for a few day. Warm muffins today, room temperature muffins tomorrow. Yes, please.

Coconut-Banana muffin for one.

Coconut-Banana Muffins

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon table salt
  • 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (probably about 3 small/2 large bananas)
  • ¾ cup butter, melted
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon coconut extract (optional, but a nice to have. Rather than running around all over town for coconut extract, I order on-line)
  • 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut (divided use)
  • 1-2 tablespoons granulated or coarse sugar
  1. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cup liners.
  2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  3. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
  4. In another bowl whisk together mashed bananas, melted butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, optional coconut extract, and ¾ cup sweetened flaked coconut.
  5. By hand, fold flour mixture into mashed banana mixture and stir until just combined and all flour has been moistened. Don’t overmix.
  6. Portion batter into the 12 prepared muffin tin.
  7. Sprinkle each muffin with a bit of the remaining ¼ cup coconut and a sprinkle of granulated or coarse sugar.
  8. Bake muffins at 375 degrees until muffins are puffed and golden, about 25 minutes.
  9. Cool slightly before serving.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. See you again soon!

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19 Aug 2019 Grandma’s Buttermilk Cornbread
Grandma’s Buttermilk Cornbread
(on my brand new cutting board, a birthday gift from my daughter!)

As a young kid, Jiffy brand cornbread was my favorite and because it was cheap, I think it was fifteen cents a box, it fit into my family’s budget.  The mix only required one egg and a ¼ cup of milk or water to make six muffins.  As I got older, I tried many cornbread recipes and I tried to get fancy by adding in corn kernels or topping with cheese or stirring in sour cream.  I never settled on a recipe until I tried the Albers cornmeal no frills, back-of-the-box recipe baked in an 8″ x 8″ square pan. I was VERY happy with that recipe, until I found this recipe. The recipe is a bit odd, not so much in the ingredients, but in the mixing method. The resulting cornbread can’t be beat though, not by Jiffy, not by Albers, and not by adding in corn, cheese, and sour cream.

Cornbread is not just for chili or soup! In one of Ruth Reichl’s books, I learned how to elevate day old cornbread and now leftover cornbread is a favorite breakfast treat.  Cut the square slice of cornbread, or the muffin, in half lengthwise—across the middle so you have a top and a bottom not a left side and right side!  Butter the cut edges.  Lay the buttered side down in a hot frying pan.  Let the cornbread sizzle until the buttered sides are slightly browned and the cornbread is warmed through. Eat. Delicious!

This recipe was posted in All Recipes in 2006 by Bethany Weathersby. I’ve rewritten the steps to make the recipe easier to follow, but I have not changed any ingredients. Don’t use a mixer for this, cornbread needs to be combined by hand.

I am not going to get into the whole southern vs northern cornbread recipe debate. This is sweet cornbread, and I like it. I live in South San Jose in Northern California, and this recipe works for me and since I am posting it, I don’t see how anyone will not like it!

Can’t wait to try it with my Ham Bone Bean Soup or Gringo Grandma’s Chili
and then I’ll skillet toast another slice for breakfast 🙂

Grandma’s Buttermilk Cornbread

  • ½ cup butter
  • 2/3 cup of white sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup cornmeal (yes, I use Albers)
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour (125 g)
  • ½ teaspoon salt (add ¼ teaspoon more if using unsalted butter)
  1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
  2. Butter an 8×8 inch square casserole dish
  3. Melt butter in a large skillet or medium saucepan
  4. Remove skillet from heat and stir in sugar
  5. Quickly add beaten eggs into butter-sugar mixture and beat until well blended
  6. Stir the baking soda into the buttermilk
  7. Add the buttermilk mixture to the butter-sugar-egg mixture in the pan
  8. Combine the flour, cornmeal and salt, whisk to evenly distribute
  9. Add the flour mixture into the pan with the butter-sugar-eggs-buttermilk mixture
  10. Stir until well blended, a few small lumps should remain
  11. Pour batter into the prepared 8×8 inch pan
  12. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean
  13. Let cool a few minutes
  14. Serve and share

NOTES: According to the originator of this recipe, the baked cornbread freezes well. She also states that it’s OK to sub whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour, but baking time will increase about 10 minutes. I haven’t tried this.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today, what shall we make tomorrow?

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11 Jan 2011 Cracked Sugar Pumpkin-Apple Muffins

Pumpkin isn’t only for October and November you know.  I hope you have an extra can or two of pumpkin puree on hand for the other ten months of the year.  This isn’t a pumpkin muffin, and it isn’t an apple muffin, it’s a bit of both, so it should please everyone.  I like the pumpkin, I like the diced apple, but I especially like the cracked sugar on top!

These muffins stay moist and tasty for at least three days.  I’ve never had one around longer than three days, so I don’t know what happens on day four or five. (If I had expected to have extras around that long, I’d freeze them.  It only takes a few minutes to defrost a muffin, especially if you slice or quarter it.)

In muffin recipes I often substitute half the oil in the recipe for applesauce.  Oddly, it doesn’t work well in this muffin. The texture suffers quite a bit.  If you are out of Pumpkin pie spice, as I am, use ¾ teaspoon ginger plus ½ teaspoon nutmeg, plus scant ½ teaspoon ground cloves OR allspice,  instead of the 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice.

This recipe makes 18-20 muffins.  I know that’s a lot. But you’ll make a lot of people happy!

Cracked Sugar Pumpkin-Apple Muffins

For the muffins

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
½ cup vegetable oil (or ¼ cup oil plus ¼ cup applesauce)
2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple (about 2 apples)

For the cracked sugar topping

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons butter

Preheat oven to 350º. Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift together 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin and oil.

Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, ¼ cup sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter (about 1 teaspoon of topping per muffin)

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today! I hope I’ll see you again tomorrow!

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