Sunday morning muffins: orange-nutmeg

Muffins are a satisfying Sunday morning project. Mix the dry stuff, mix the wet stuff, mix them together and 20 or so minutes later: muffiny goodness. Tear into one of these warm fluffy things with a nice cup of coffee and you're ready to sail just a little less woefully through the last day of the weekend.

This morning I tried a recipe for orange-nutmeg muffins that I found over on Orangette. They sounded really lovely and flavorful and kind of perfect for winter when nothing but oranges and bananas are available for mix-ins. I made one substitution--buttermilk instead of heavy cream, only because while at the market I'd thought that was actually what the recipe called for--and while mixing up the batter it occurred to me that the tang of the buttermilk might bring out the zingy nutmeg and orange even more. (Oh happy accident!) However, the finished product didn't really taste all that spicy or zingy. It didn't actually taste like much at all! (Oh unhappy accident!) But I don't think it was the buttermilk's fault. The texture of the muffin was nice: moist and crumby, with just a little bit of chew (which I owe to the buttermilk and the fact that there's no butter and just a little bit of oil in these guys), but the flavor was really very light.




In retrospect, I should have expected this. Orange and nutmeg are great flavors, but they can't really carry a recipe on their own. When paired with a more dominant fruit like cranberry (and in the case of nutmeg, apple or pear), you can identify and appreciate their presence with much more lip-smacking gusto. I'd recommend keeping this recipe in your repertoire as a great base for fruity muffins. If you want to give it a whirl, try adding 3/4 cup of one of the following to bump up the flavor: cranberries, peeled and diced apple or pear, or diced dried apricots.
I froze the remaining muffins in this batch and plan to break them out next weekend and try them with a spoonful of this cranberry jam I've been wanting to make.





Orange-Nutmeg Muffins (adapted only ever-so-slightly from Orangette)

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup light brown sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (Chefty note: I added closer to a full teaspoon)
½ tsp salt
Zest of ½ to 1 orange, to taste
1 large egg
¾ cup heavy cream (Chefty note: or buttermilk)
¾ cup milk (I used whole, but any type is fine)
4 Tbs canola oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. (Chefty note: I only have a 6-cup tin, allow for an extra ten minutes in the oven if that's what you use.)

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and zest. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg well. Then stir in the cream, milk, and oil, whisking to blend well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir to just combine (overmixing will develop the gluten in the flour and make for tough muffins).

Scoop the muffin batter evenly into the wells of the greased muffin tin. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes (or 30 minutes if you're using a 6-cup tin), or until domed and nicely golden. Serve warm.

Orangette notes that these muffins freeze really well. [Allow them to thaw at room temperature; then reheat them gently in a 300-degree oven.] As I mentioned above, I've frozen the rest of my batch and will report back on how they taste reheated.

Yield: 12 smallish muffins (or 6 big fluffy ones).

Cup custard

Cup custard has been one of my favorite desserts for as long as I can remember. My mother made it often when we were young, usually in the fall. It's really simple to make, just eggs, milk or cream, sugar, and vanilla, baked in a water bath in a low oven. My mother always put nutmeg on top, now I realize that was probably a trick--and a good one--to make them look like creme brulee's burnt sugar crust. The nutmeg tastes really nice with the cream, though. I prefer it to a burnt sugar crust, which, while delicious, inevitably gets stuck in your teeth. (When I was little I used to save the nutmeg-crusted corners for last, they tasted so good. Chewy and sweet.)

Last night, I opened the fridge and realized that I still had a lot of duck eggs to use, so I made them into a batch of custards. I used a mix of half-and-half and milk. My mother's original recipe is just whole milk, which produces a lighter, firmer custard then this one. As you'll see this is soft and a little loose without being runny, almost coddled in texture. Begging for a spoon. It tastes rich (almost too rich, I think next time I'll stick to just milk) and velvety, like a creme brulee, and it's nice and eggy just the way I like it!

When I was whisking the duck eggs I could definitely see their potential for making great cakes. But who has time for that? I'll take custard please.

Cup Custard (makes 4 large ramekins or 6 medium)

This is not my mother's recipe, because I don't have her cookbook, but it's probably not wildly different. If you wanted to get creative with the flavoring, you could infuse the milk/cream with something other than vanilla when you're heating it.

6 large egg yolks
3 cups of milk (or half-and-half or a mix of both, depending on how creamy you want it)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean split in half and scraped, or 1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Grated nutmeg (I used fresh but the powder is fine)

First: put a kettle of water on to boil. Pre-heat the oven to 300-325 degrees. (My oven doesn't have a 325 option, so do what you can.)

1. Warm milk with vanilla bean (scrapings and pod) until hot but not boiling.
2. Whisk egg yolks vigorously until smooth and a little lighter in color, then add sugar and salt and whisk to combine.
3. Add the warmed milk/cream, slowly at first so you temper the yolks (tempering, this sounds fancy but isn't--just want to make sure the yolks don't scramble). Whisk to combine.
4. Pour the custard through a sieve into a pitcher if you have one for easy pouring.
5. Portion out the custard among your cups taking care not to fill them too high. Sprinkle generously with nutmeg.
6. Place cups in a roasting pan and fill the pan with warm water from your kettle until the water reaches halfway up the side of the cups.

7. Bake for 30 minutes until the custard is set and barely quivering. Remove from the pan with tongs if you have them (easier than maneuvering a pan filled with hot water) and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.