Dave’s mother just returned from a trip to Michigan to visit family. She usually brings back delicious dried cherries (this time I had requested a larger batch as I seem to be using them a lot for baking) when she goes. There was an extra special treat in additon to the cherries: red currants, freshly picked from the bush in Dave’s grandmother’s yard.
I had never cooked with fresh currants before, and had a much harder time that I expected finding recipes with them, both online and in my cookbooks. A popular recipe that pops up everywhere is red currant jelly (which Dave’s grandmother used to make every year), but I was in the mood for some baking (when am I not).
After much back and forth, I finally settled on a sour cream muffin recipe from my favorite baking cookbook, Whole Grain Baking, by the folks at King Arthur Flour. The recipe allows for the addition of the berries or stone fruits of your choice. They baked up light and tender and just sweet enough to ballance out the tartness from the currants.
The most labor intensive part of the whole process is removing the currants from the stem. Some people recommend using a fork and gently dragging it down the stem as you hold it over a bowl, but I tried this and found that it left some small bits of stem on the berries. Instead, I did what my mother-in-law told me to do: gently pick the berries off with your fingers. It took a while, but it was worth it.
Dave and I enjoyed them for breakfast (and dessert, in Dave’s case) for several days.
Red Currant Muffins
Adapted from Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur Flour
Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups red currants
Procedure:
1. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or line with papers. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour through salt) and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the vanill and the sour cream and mix until incorporated.
4. Add the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed, just until the batter comes together. Gently fold in the currants.
5. Scoop the batter by the 1/4-cup into the prepared muffin tin. Bake until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean, 22 to 26 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to finish cooling.
Some notes: The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream (no yogurt) but since I only had 1/2 cup of sour cream in my fridge, I made the above change. The original also recommends letting the batter rest for an hour in the fridge before baking (which they say is optional). I did not do this (I was hungry), but perhaps if I had, they might not have spread as much. They still tasted great.
