Recipe - Any-Fruit-Will-Do Muffins With Streusal Topping Pt1

STREUSAL TOPPING
1/3 cup Brown sugar or granulated
white sugar
One half teaspoon Ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon Butter; unsalted
One half cup Finely chopped walnuts

ANY FRUIT WILL DO MUFFINS
2 One half cup Unbleached white flour; up
to 2 Three fourths cups
1 teaspoon Baking soda
2 teaspoon Baking powder
One half teaspoon Ground cinnamon
1 pn Salt
1 1/3 cup Firmly packed light brown
sugar
2/3 cup Vegetable oil
1 tablespoon Minced lime; lemon, or
orange zest, see note
1 Egg
1 cup Buttermilk
2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 Three fourths cup Loosely packed fruit; see
note

1. For the topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl or work bowl of
a food processor, add butter. If mixing by hand, use fingertips, a pastry
blender, or 2 forks to blend the fat into dry ingredients until mixture
looks like coarse irregular crumbs, with no visible lumps of fat. If mixing
in a food processor, pulse about 10 times, then process 5 to 10 seconds,
until there are no visible lumps of fat, stir in nuts and set aside.

2. For the muffins, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to

400 degrees. Lightly grease the top surface of a 12cup muffin pan use
liners, if necessary. Whisk 2 One half cups flour with next 4 ingredients in a
medium bowl, set aside.

3. Whisk together next 4 ingredients in a large bowl, whisk in buttermilk
and vanilla. Gently whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients to partially
blend. Continue mixing batter with a rubber spatula, making sure that
ingredients at the bottom are incorporated into batter fold in fruit.
(Frozen fruit will help "firm" up batter. If batter seems too wet add a few
more tablespoons of flour, up to One fourth cupto stiffen batter.)

4. Using an icecream scoop, place a portion of batter into each muffin
cup, filling to the brim. Sprinkle a portion of streusal topping over
batter in each muffin cup.

5. Bake 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake until muffins are
golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed with fingertips, 10 to

12 minutes. Let muffins cool in pan for 5 minutes then transfer them to a
wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 1 dozen.

Cook's Illustrated, Sept./Oct. 1993,Page 8. Credit: Stephen Schmidt.

Nationality: USA Season:any Courses: batter bread, breakfast Method: baked

Start to Finish 1 One half hours Preparation 10 minutes Attention 1 hour
Finishing 5 minutes

Converted from Mangia!, Cook's Illustrated 19931995 Cookbook

NOTES : To simplify muffin making, quadruple the streusel topping recipe
and freeze. Orange, lemon, or lime zests can be used to flavor the
muffins, if you like. Lemon works well with blueberry, orange zest with
cranberry or rhubarb, lime zest with banana chunks.Almost any fruit works
in this recipe. Good choices include: fresh or frozen rhubarb, minced ,
cranberries, coarsely chopped,blueberries, apples, cut into small dice,
bananas, cut into firm,small chunks, raspberries, strawberries, quartered
or cut into small dice, dried sour cherries or cranberries. To prevent
delicate,highly colored fruits like raspberries, cranberries, and
blueberries from getting mashed and discoloring the batter, use semi frozen
fruit. It is not necessary to use paper baking liners if the muffin tin is
commercial, glazed, or nonstick.

continued in part 2