Lundi: Recipes

A few years back when the big cupcake craze was unleashing its tentacles out of New York and Los Angeles to en-fatten the rest of the country, my older daughter bought Cupcakes! From the Cake Doctor.  This book by Anne Byrn, which is actually pretty large at 374 pages, takes the muss and fuss out of cupcake making by literally doctoring cake mixes.  Some of the recipes are really good – the Mardi Gras cupcakes will probably appear here at HQ one February – but my favorite section is about muffins; or, as Ms. Byrn calls them, “breakfast cupcakes.”

Here’s one I’d personally love to see on the brunch menu for Mother’s Day: Double Lemon Poppy Seed Cheesecake Muffins.

1 8 oz package of cream cheese at room temp

2 large eggs

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp grated lemon zest

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 15.8 oz package lemon poppy seed muffin mix (is you can’t find lemon poppy seed mix, plane poppy seed muffin mix works just as well; add a little extra lemon zest to up the lemon quotient if you’d like)

1 cup milk

¼ cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place cupcake papers in each of 12 cups in a muffin tin; set aside.

For filling:  in a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, one egg, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla until creamy either by hand or with a mixer.  Set aside.

For muffin batter:  place muffin mix in a large mixing bowl and make a little well in the center.  Put the oil, milk and one egg in the well and stir the wet ingredients with a whisk or fork to combine and break the egg’s yolk; if you’d prefer, you can do this in a separate bowl or measuring cup.  Once this is done, combine all ingredients with a spoon for about 20 strokes.  You don’t want to overwork the batter; it should be a little lumpy.

Spoon the batter into your cupcake paper-lined muffin tin, filling the cups to about ¾ full.  Drop a generous tablespoon of the cream cheese filling in the middle of each muffin.  Place pan in the oven and bake until golden brown, about 20 to 22 minutes.  The muffins should spring back when lightly pressed with your finger.

Allow pan to cool on a rack for about five minutes.  Remove muffins from tin and place on a wire rack to cool at least fifteen minutes.

Repeat with remaining batter and filling until done.

These muffins will keep in zip top bags for a couple of days in your bread box or up to a week in the frig.  Bon appetite ~

Header: Lauren Bacall and her mother at home via Mid-Century