Cuisine d’Or Any-Fruit-Will-Do Lawsuit Muffins

• STREUSEL: If you make this recipe quite frequently, it’s always nice to have extra streusel topping on hand. Quadruple the recipe (using the food processor for this larger batch) and store in a container in the freezer. For longer lasting streusel, substitute unsalted margarine instead of the butter.

[Marie’s personal notes are shown in square brackets]

Prepare citrus zest [use a zester] and streusel and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F [200 C]. Line muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, brown sugar, citrus zest and egg. Do not overbeat, mixture should be pasty. Blend in the vanilla and buttermilk.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Blend gently into batter. When halfway blended, fold in fruit. Sometimes the use of frozen fruit will help “firm” up the batter. If not, and batter seems too gloppy add a few more tablespoons of flour (up to four in total) to make batter a bit stiffer.

Scoop into paper-lined muffin tin. Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over each muffin.

Bake 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 F [180 C] and bake until done, approximately another 12-15 minutes. Muffins should spring back when pressed lightly. Let sit in pan 5 minutes before removing. Makes 10-12 muffins.

CHOICES IN FRUITS

Almost any fruit works wonderfully in this recipe. Good choices include:

Rhubarb, fresh or frozen, diced

Fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped [replace lemon zest with zest of a large orange!]

Blueberries [excellent with lime zest, but leave out cinnamon and replace streusel with toasted slivered almonds]

Apples - diced [also add fresh blackberries if you have some, and replace walnuts by pecans in streusel; the apples being quite wet when cut into chucks {I toss them with lemon}, add 1 tbs less buttermilk {or use Total Greek yogurt instead of buttermilk}]

Bananas, firm, small chunks, can add a pinch of nutmeg [also delish. when replacing streusel with a thin lemon glacé icing once cooked, and topping glaze with flaked coconut]

Frozen Raspberries

Frozen Strawberries (cut in chunks)

Dried Sour Cherries, Cranberries [I would also add sunflower seeds with the cranberries, and reduce sugar by 1/4 cup]

Strawberry AND Rhubarb combination

Apple Cranberry Combination

Rhubarb and Apple

For delicate, highly colored fruits such as raspberries, cranberries or blueberries, using semi-frozen fruit helps prevent batter discoloration and protects the fruit from becoming mashed in the batter.

Scoop muffin batter, using an ice-cream scoop, into prepared muffin tins. Place muffin tin in upper third of oven. Bake (22-30 minutes), reduce heat and bake until muffins are just dry on top and lightly browned.

Let muffins rest about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

[additional notes:

• for fan assited ovens, remember to reduce heat by 20C
• bake in centre of oven
• freeze well - freeze as soon as