Its a weekday, and I am generally in a happy mood. I had some stuff that I have acquired over a period of time through the US travels. I wanted to bake something because its been too long. And did I mention, I am generally in a happy mood?
Well… I didn’t have the patience to do anything heavy duty, but wanted something nice, hot and baked. Nothing chocolatey (though I have quite some choco chips waiting to be used) , nothing with coffee and no fruits either. And what better than a nice batch of muffins. I could just think and experiment with muffin batter like the sky’s my limit… :)
So last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I made a mental list of all the ingredients I had at home, and I was itching to use. The ones that stood out were the box of extracts that a friend sent from the US, and the dried cherries, blueberries and cranberries I had in the pantry. Some late-night-on-the-phone-Binging on all these ingredients gave me some good ideas.
And hence the thought of a Cherry Vanilla Muffin. I had not baked anything with cherries in it so far, and my bottle of vanilla extract tempted me to try this. Some more Binging and I bumped into this recipe to which I promptly made some customizations.
So back from work, with a hungry rumbling stomach with the sandwich and Baileys only increasing my appetite, I got on to the job of making these. One look at my pantry revealed some very tasty and aromatic fruit infusions, and they were used too. The muffins baked in precisely 18 mins, and it took me a total of 40 mins to put them all together.
Here is the recipe -
Ingredients
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp Fruit infusion – I used strong Strawberry tea. You can use anything by Twinings.
1 cup yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cherries, chopped, soaked in Strawberry tea for about 15 mins
Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 200 C and line the muffin pan with the paper muffin cups.
Sieve the AP Flour, baking soda, baking powder, Sugar and Cinnamon powder together in a big bowl.
In another bowl, mix together the yogurt, fruit infusion, vanilla extract and oil, and beat them till they almost blend. At this point, the yogurt might curdle a bit, but I noticed that they made the muffins softer.
Mix together the wet and dry ingredients very gently, without beating the air off the batter. Pour spoonfuls of this batter, decorate the top with some left over cherries if you like, and bake these for 15-18 mins.
This recipe makes about 20 medium sized muffins.
There was a very gentle fruit flavour , the yogurt had made the muffins very smooth, and the sugar was still a bit crystalized, adding the crunch to the muffins.
In short, they truly served their purpose – ensuring that I stay alive till I cook dinner, and get that wide grin on the husband’s face :-)