Any-Fruit-Will-Do Muffins With Streusel Topping

Submitted by gailanng

"Originally from Bon Appetit and claimed as one of their best muffin recipes. Consider making for breakfast, too."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 17
• Yields: 10-12 muffins

ingredients

• STREUSEL TOPPING

• 1⁄3 cup brown sugar or 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon butter, unsalted
• 1⁄2 cup finely chopped walnuts

• MUFFINS

• 2 1⁄2 cups unbleached white flour, up to 2 3/4 cups
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 1⁄3 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2⁄3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon limes, lemon or 1 tablespoon orange zest, see note
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3⁄4 cups loosely packed fruit, see note

directions

1. For the streusel topping:

2. Mix sugar, cinnamon and pinch of salt 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 butter. If mixing in a food processor, pulse about 10 times, then process 5 to 10 seconds, until there are no visible lumps of butter; stir in nuts. Set aside.

3. For the muffins:

4. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease the top surface of a 12-cup muffin pan; use liners, if necessary.
5. Whisk 2 1/2 cups flour with next 4 ingredients in a medium bowl, set aside.
6. 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 1/4 cup, to stiffen batter.).
7. Using an ice-cream scoop, place a portion of batter into each muffin cup, filling to the brim. Sprinkle a portion of streusel topping over batter in each muffin cup.
8. Bake 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed with fingertips. Let muffins cool in pan for 5 minutes then transfer them to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

9. NOTES:

10. To simplify muffin making, quadruple the streusel topping recipe and freeze.
11. Orange, lemon, or lime zests can be used to flavor the muffins, if you like.
12. Lemon works well with blueberry.
13. Orange zest with cranberry or rhubarb.
14. Lime zest with banana chunks.

15. Almost any fruit works in this recipe. Good choices include:

16. apples, cut into small dice.
17. bananas, cut into firm, small chunks.
18. blueberries.
19. cranberries, coarsely chopped.
20. dried sour cherries or cranberries.
21. raspberries.
22. rhubarb, diced (fresh or frozen).
23. strawberries, quartered or cut into small dice.
24. To prevent delicate, highly colored fruits like raspberries, cranberries, and blueberries from getting mashed and discoloring the batter, use semi frozen fruit.
25. It is not necessary to use paper baking liners if the muffin tin is commercial, glazed, or nonstick.

Reviews

[Gerry]

Love streusel topped muffins. Made these delicous muffins using apples, pecans and lemon zest - made for a great combination. These would not only make for great breakfast or brunch - they are perfect 'make and takes' and coffee hour muffins! Thank you gailanng.

 

[diner524]

These aren't your boxed muffin mix!!!!! I made these using blueberries and the lemon zest. I served with my recipe#269300 and corn for a wonderful Sunday night comfort meal!! The only change I made was to use pecans in place of the walnuts. Thanks for posting the recipe. Made for PRMR Tag Game.

 

[katew]

I love the versatility of this recipe and today made this as a slice using sultanas and banana. Having recently moved house my muffin tray was unlocatable sadly. Anything with open ended options is 5 star to me.

 

[loof751]

Great bakery-style muffins! I used cranberries for the fruit and pecans for the nuts. Make sure you follow the direction to spray the top of the muffin pan for easy removal (even if you use liners) because these rise up so high. The streusel topping was great on these. Looking forward to trying these with blueberries or strawberries in the summer. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

 

[UmmBinat]

Tasty. The streusel fell off somewhat upon eating however. I made ours gluten free using recipe#360337 as the flours/gum, I added 1 tbs organic apple cider vinegar and a 1/2 tsp more baking soda to the dry mixture as I can not find a baking powder we can consume (corn, gluten and cream of tartar free, if anyone knows?) I used the canola oil amount in the gluten free recipe as 2/3 cup seemed a lot, used instead of vegetable oil to be soy free! I made the streusel topping as stated. In the muffin mixture I used somewhat less dark brown sugar even though my fruit of choice was fresh cranberries and not too sweet pear which I cored, peeled and chopped not too small. By mistake I added lime juice before I sent in a correction for lime zest, then upon finding this mistake I added some lemon zest but not the full amount as I didn't have it! I used Balkan (thick) yogurt and a bit of water for the buttermilk, and less halal vanilla paste. I put the batter in muffin cups and cooked according to recipe#360337, temperature-wise and time-wise. Made for Everyday Is A Holiday December 2010.