Thank you, may I have another?

Oh Martha, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... This morning I'm enjoying an excellent muffin baked fresh earlier from Martha's Baking Handbook. Plum Coffee-Cake Muffins. Yum. I have made this twice this week. The first time I substituted peaches. This morning, plums from the farmer's market. Baby plums to be exact. I also made a struesel topping that the recipe didn't call for it. Odd because I when I think of coffee cake, I think of crumbling topping. But maybe that's just me. Anyway, I'll share the recipe. If you don't have this book, you should get it. It has some great recipes in it. These muffins are so easy to make and really quick. Well, that is, if you remember that you don't have eggs and your husband doesn't have to run out and get them in the middle of baking. Otherwise it'll take 1/2 hr, baking included.

Plum Coffee-Cake Muffins

1 stick of butter, melted

3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 T for sprinkling

3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (add more if you like spice)

2 cups all purpose flour

1 T of baking powder

1/2 teas salt

pinch (or 2) of nutmeg

2 large eggs, room temp

1 teas vanilla

3/4 cup of milk (I used skim and it's fine)

3 ripe red plums ( about 1 pound) cut into small chunks

Preheat oven to 375. Butter 10 cups of muffin tin. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, 3/4 cup sugar. set aside.


In another bowl, (I just used my pyrex measurer) whisk together wet ingredients. Using rubber spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture until just combined. Fill each cup halfway, smoothing batter flat.


Distribute the plum pieces even among the cups. Spoon remaining batter over top. Sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar mixture (or make a streusel topping, as I did).


Bake, rotating pan halfway, until the muffins are puffed and golden brown, about 16-18 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let stand 5-10 minutes. Turn out muffins on a rack to cool for a few minutes. Serve warm.


I'm enjoying mine with a nice cup of coffee, made from coffee beans from the farmers market. Lucky me. I acutally had great pictures of the process, but John gave me the camera without the memory card in it. And since I still don't have my cord, I have no way of getting them off the camera. grrrrr.