Gingerbread Muffins

Nothing tastes better than a warm muffin in the morning. Especially when you’re used to eating cold cereal (with extra cold milk!). I didn’t feel like doing my normal breakfast-routine, so I baked up some muffins. Muffins are really the only thing I can stand to bake early in the morning, everything else will have to wait till noon! Since the Chocolate – Gingerbread Cupcakes tasted so good, I opted for a gingerbread muffin. Also, this is really the time of year to make them, I can’t imagine baking these in … let’s say July! They were (of course) easy to make and easy to like. They tasted like real breakfast muffins: not too sweet and a hint of savory-ness. I’d give them 3 out of 5, my family 4 out of 5, so a little math would lead me to a 3.5 out of 5!

Gingerbread Muffins recipe: Nigella Lawson - Feast

Ingredients:
- 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ⅓ cup packed light brown sugar
- ¾ cup whole milk
- ¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- 6 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil
- 4 tablespoons dark corn syrup
- 4 tablespoons molasses

Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease or line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin cups.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in another bowl, then add the brown sugars, making sure to break up any lumps. Add the milk and vinegar to the egg-brown sugar mixture then measure in the oil with a tablespoon. Use the same oily spoon to add the corn syrup and molasses so they don’t stick to it. Whisk the mixture to combine and add to the flour and spices.
- Stir until mixed but still fairly lumpy - the mixture may be more runny than you expect for muffins - but you need the dense stickiness of gingerbread, rather than a cakey crumb.
- Spoon or pour the mixture into the muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes until the tops are dry; the muffins will still feel squidgy when you take them out of the tins to cool on a rack. Note that because the mixture is moist, these muffins will not have the hump-topped look of store-bought ones. But unlike other muffins, these will taste gloriously good a couple of days after baking.


I topped the batter with mini-gingerbread cookies.

Polka-dotted Christmas muffins!



Nom, nom, j'adore mon petit déjeuner!

When the muffins were till warm, half of the muffin sticked to the muffin-cups. Does anyone know why some muffins do this? Not enough vegetable oil? I'm puzzled.