White Chocolate Craisin Muffins

By Rachelle Bowden in Food on Mar 6, 2006 3:52PM

Chicagoist was recently gifted an ambiguous baking tin…at first look it seemed to be made for muffins, but upon closer inspection of the batter depositories (you know, like, where you put the mix?) Chicagoist began to have our doubts. Worries and wonders not withstanding, Saturday afternoon seemed like a good day to do some baking.

We took our favorite baking book and tweaked its chocolate chip muffin recipe to fit our White Chocolate Craisin intentions:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 cup white chocolate chips (or more if you're feeling craaazy)
1 cup Ocean Spray Craisins (or more if you're feeling absolutely insane)

We preheated our oven to 375 degrees and sprayed each 'muffin' receptacle with Pam.

Because we didn't have an electric mixer to aid us with creaming the butter and sugar together, we cheated and melted the butter in the microwave for about forty five seconds. We then whisked the sugar into the liquid butter.

Once the sugar and butter were combined we beat in the eggs.

Like the electric mixer before it, we didn't have a sieve (technically you should sift the flour and baking soda before adding it in…but our method didn't seem to have any dire ramifications), so we simply hoped for the best when adding the flour and baking powder into the mixture. We alternated between the milk and flour/baking powder until each ingredient was fully integrated.

Then we added the white chocolate chips and craisins, stirring liberally.

We filled each muffin receptacle (really though, what do you call them?) with batter leaving about 1/2 inch below the rim.

Then we stuck the suckers in the oven for 25 minutes, pulled em out, let them think about cooling down for about ten minutes and then, finally, stuffed our faces.

Though lacking in proper muffin shape (a little too cylindrical) our muffins were flavorful and moist on the inside with a nicely browned (but not burned) shell. Having done a little more reading on the matter, Chicagoist realizes that our muffin tin is, in fact, a popover pan…another baking Saturday in the making.

Thanks, Caroline!