October 02, 2004

Sour cream coffecake muffins

Score one for the Cook's Illustrated team: I didn't have terribly high hopes for these coffeecake muffins, but they came out as sublime as muffins can come out. Just the right level of denseness vs. fluffiness, just sweet enough, just the right amount of pecan flavor, ideal amounts of streusel topping -- these muffins were a revelation of what muffins could be. They felt light to the taste but were very filling. (I'm also imaging that with just a stick of butter and an egg in the whole dozen muffins, they're not quite as bad for you as most store-bought muffins -- but that's not really an angle I care about too much.)

On a technical note, this is the first time that I felt happy with how I cut the butter into the flour. I used a whisk at first, and then switched to a pastry cutter for most of the work, and then a small amount of whisking at the end to make sure it was the right consistency. I might be ready to try biscuits again.

Posted by chris at October 2, 2004 12:29 PM