Every weekend I bake a batch of muffins. I find it tremendously comforting to have some baked goods in the house at all times; it gives me that domestic goddess feeling, and I quite like the idea of owning up to that image of the happy homemaker who cooks and bakes from scratch for the ones she loves. While that’s not always a reality, it sure does feel good to serve a homemade snack or breakfast once in a while that doesn’t come out of a box or package.
Baklava muffins, ready to be drizzled with honey. Because a little sweetness in your life is a good thing.
Muffins have the added benefit that they are multi-taskers, in that they can be served for breakfast, after school snack, lunch box break, or tea time treat. They’re usually not too sweet, and provide me with that satisfaction when I want a goodie with my cup of tea or coffee, but I don’t want a boxed biscuit or cookie.
This fits the bill, and rather nicely. I also like that you’re never more than a few minutes away from mixing a batch of muffins, and having them hot and ready out of the oven in under a half hour. The one drawback to muffins is that they’re best eaten the day they’re made, but like all things in life, you take the good with the bad, and in the case of muffins, the benefit of a homemade baked good far outweighs the drawback of eating something that can go stale rather quickly. Luckily, we have butter and microwave ovens to make these more palatable after a day or two.
Layering that nutty, cinnamony goodness in a muffin is a good thing.
This weekend, the domestic goddess urge struck me, and I immediately referred to one of my favourite books from one of my all time favourite authors, How To Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson, the uber-goddess of culinary domesticity. Perusing the book’s index for the muffin topic revealed an interesting, and easy to make entry titled Baklava Muffins. Nigella clipped this recipe from a book called The Joy of Muffins: The International Muffin Cook Book, by Genevieve Farrow and Diane Dreher. She says she acquired this title in one of her nightly online purchases (something I can only relate to all too well…Meat and Tater Man thinks the UPS guy and I have a fling going on, given how often Amazon purchases are delivered to my doorstep each week).
Let that honey drip all over…it’s sooo good!
At any rate, Nigella’s decription of these was bang on: gooey, crunchy, soft and filling; sticky buns for the slapdash cook. Need I say more?
This is as good as it sounds - you get the sweetness and nutty crunch of the baklava filling in a moist, tender, not too sweet muffin. So good...
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's How To Be a Domestic Goddess, who adapted the original recipe from The Joy of Muffins: The International Muffin Cook Book, by Genevieve Farrow and Diane Dreher.
Ingredients
- Filling
- 1 cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 tbsp melted butter
- Batter
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 3 tbsp melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk
- Topping
- 1/2 cup good quality honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F. Line a muffin pan with paper baking cups, or spray with some non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
- Mix filling ingredients together in a small bowl. Mix and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
- In another large bowl, whisk the egg, butter, vanilla and buttermilk.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until just combined. Don't stir too much!
- Fill the lined muffin cups 1/3 full with batter and add 1 tablespoon of filling, then cover with remaining batter. Sprinkle any remaining filling on top.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Remove from muffin tins and drizzle with honey.
I am very upset that I missed Al’s goodies and didn’t get to try one :).
We’ll have to make sure we send him with an extra batch next week!!! I’m looking forward to baking this weekend!