Recipe: Almond flavor three ways enhances the fruit-filled muffins
Cherry season finally has arrived. The early cherries are perfect to use in these muffins. Debbie Arrington
Cherries have finally arrived in local farmers markets. This season’s crop was weather delayed at least three weeks by our cool spring. But they’re ripening rapidly now in mid-May heat.
The earliest cherries typically aren’t the sweetest, but they’re still bursting with juiciness and cherry tartness. That makes them ideal for these easy muffins, studded with cherry “bombs.”
Almonds are a natural complement to cherries. Almond flour adds richness and moistness to the batter as well as a subtle nuttiness. Muffins made with almond flour also turn out a little shorter (and darker on top) tha all-wheat flour counterparts, but they’re very tender – just what a muffin should be.
Demerara sugar is my favorite muffin topper. This large-grained sugar adds crunch as well as sweetness, but white sugar works well, too.
Fresh cherry-almond muffins
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup almond flour
¾ cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 tablespoons milk
1 large egg, beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
1 cup fresh cherries, pitted and quartered
¼ cup slivered almonds
2 tablespoons demerara or white sugar
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin; either grease cups or line with paper or silicon liners. Set aside.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, almond flour, ¾ cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In a small bowl, thin sour cream or yogurt with milk. Add egg, vegetable oil and extract.
Using a wooden spoon, mix sour cream/yogurt mixture with dry ingredients until just moistened. Batter will be thick. Gently fold in cherries.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with slivered almonds, then sprinkle with sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tin and cool on rack.
Serve warm or at room temperature. Store muffins in the refrigerator.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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