ROOTS & WINGS

4. Lemon Crumb Breakfast Muffins

Here another (breakfast) muffin variation from Tiffany + James Fraioli's Baking for Beginners.

Just realized Thursday that my Greek yoghurt didn't expire on 2/11, as I thought, but already on 1/11. Allergic to throwing away food and wanting to use it up, I searched for a recipe (could've been also savory, btw.)... and ended up at this treasure of Yums again.

The recipe just required just the remaining about 9 oz. of the yoghurt, the lemons add something tart and takes the edge off the sugar.

You know, guys, I'm on High Carb Nutrition, which translates to carb-loaded breakfast, mainly carbed lunch and low on carbs dinner. So here The Sweet Tooth's warning As quite a bit sugar's contained in the these babies, really only eat 'em in the morning when you need that energy


So, enough babble now – Old Woman's ready for some yummy energy. You too?




Serves: 12

Prep Time: about 1 hr

Degree of Difficulty: Easy




WE NEED


TOPPING


2/3 cup + 2 tbsp / 110 gr flour TIP: When I told her on the phone what I did this afternoon, my friend Marina suggested that next time I do them, I shall substitute about 1/3+ with chopped nuts / almonds for a richer taste.

5 tbsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup / 56 gr butter



MUFFINS

2 cups / 240 gr flour
1/2 tsp baking soda powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup / 56 gr butter
3/4 cup / 135 gr brown sugar
2 L- OR 3 M-Eggs the latter
1 cup / 240 gr Greek Yoghurt UN-flavored, NOT fat-reduced, or otherwise ruined

1 tsp pure lemon extract Whatever that is, didn't find it in the largest baking aisle I know; used more natural lemon instead.

1 tsp pure vanilla extract That was available, but... nope! Chopped in the remaining pods of Christmas baking vanilla,
instead. When you catch a bit of these crumbs... Mhhh.

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice That was TOO little. It took me slowly mixing in 6 more tbsp until the dough wasn't too sweet for MY liking, anymore. But do it tbsp-wise, not all at once, otherwise you don't stop at the point when the dough gets TOO liquid.

2 tbsp lemon zest The remaining zest I mixed into the crumble See




WE DO


1. Preheat the oven to 220°C / 425°F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners except you use a silicon tin. Then you don't need to "line". Zest + press out the lemons.


2. CRUMBLE: Melt the whole 1/2 cup butter – I did it in a double-boiler. Mix flour, sugar + salt in a bowl and pour half of the butter over them. Whisk until crumbs form – and crumble the crumbs finer with your fingertips if they're too big for your liking.


3. MUFFINS

a) DRY ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda/powder + salt.


b) WET ingredients: In a large bowl, beat butter + sugar until light + fluffy. Then add eggs, Greek yoghurt, lemon + vanilla extracts. Like mentioned I didn't use either as I didn't find the lemon one and used up vanilla pods from another recipe.

Next, add the dry ingredients, lemon juice + zest and GENTLY fold them in. I did it on the lowest level of my hand mixer. Also HERE: I spoon-wise added 6+ tbsp more lemon juice until the taste was to my liking.



c) Fill the dough into the tin until each mold is 3/4 full. Top with the crumbs, pressing them lightly into the dough.

d) Bake the muffins in the oven for 5 minutes at 220°C / 425°F, then reduce the temperature to 180°C / 350°F and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes OR until the crumbs are golden brown. Since every oven's different that can take longer / shorter


e) Remove the tin from the oven and let the muffins cool in the tin until they're handwarm before transferring them to a cack rack to cool off completely.

At least I had to do that as due to the extra lemon juice the dough was softer (= fluid-er) than indicated in the recipe, where the texture should be thick. So the muffins needed time to "post-cure" in the hot tin. BUT: if you didn't add extra juice, you probably needn't do that.


GUTEN HUNGER!