My daughter loves muffins. Like REALLY loves them. I think she’d eat muffins for every meal if we let her. Unfortunately, she’s not into having fruit or grated veggies in her muffins right now – I think it’s a texture issue. So, I won’t be making my favorite, blueberry muffins, any time soon. I don’t want to fill her muffins with chocolate chips every time either so I’ve started experimenting with flavors and spices. To my surprise, and delight, my girl gave me her stamp of approval on these turmeric muffins. “Mama, I like your muffins” is pretty high culinary praise when your critic is only two years old.
Do you remember that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine wants to donate all the muffin stumps? My brain goes to that show every time I make muffins. To be clear, I do eat my muffin stumps and I enjoy them. This particular recipe did something amazing inside the stumps. I tried various amounts of turmeric with each revision of the recipe. The flavor would change slightly but the color ended up with an ombre type of effect regardless of how much turmeric I added. Cut one of your muffins in half before biting in and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Maybe Elaine wouldn’t have been ditching all those muffin stumps if they had been this pretty inside.
Tips
- You can freeze these muffins and then reheat as needed – about 45 seconds in the microwave should do it.
- The sugar topping is completely optional but it does add a nice texture and sweetness.
Turmeric Muffins
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon ground turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup milk
- Optional: course sugar such as turbinado or demerara for sprinkling on top.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line muffin pan with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture. Add milk then remaining dry ingredients.
- Scoop batter into muffin pan, filling each cup two thirds full. Lightly sprinkle each muffin with course sugar. Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.