Raspberry Muffins
A few weeks ago I was taking a twilit summer stroll through our back field with my husband and our two dogs when all of a sudden I spotted something in the hedges along the south fence. “Stop,” I said, with an urgency that made everyone obey and the dogs perk up their ears.
“What is it?” my husband replied.
“Are those…raspberries?” I exclaimed skeptically, wading into the hedgerow. And they were. There were tons of them, in fact. You see, I’d known there were wild raspberries on the property since I bought it eight years ago, but they’d never seemed to produce enough to make them worth bothering with before. Then a couple of years ago, my husband installed a 4′ wire fence around our 4.5 acre property to keep the dogs contained and it seems that the raspberry bushes climbed up it and began to thrive. We’ve since harvested at least six quarts without even really trying and I have been baking with them on a scale I’d never done before since they are quite expensive at the grocery store. This easy recipe has become a favorite.
Raspberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus 1/4 cup
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups raspberries
- 1/4 cup sparkling sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
- Line a regular-sized muffin tray with paper liners
- Combine first four ingredients in a mixing bowl, reserving the 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour for the raspberries. Stir in the melted butter to combine
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and vanilla, then add it to the muffin batter
- Toss the raspberries with the reserved 1/4 cup of flour to coat, then fold into the batter
- Divide the muffin batter evenly among the twelve muffin cups
- Sprinkle each muffin with sparkling sugar
- Bake for 18 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean
- Cool on a wire rack and serve immediately or store in an airtight container. Because raspberries have a short shelf life, any muffins that will not be consumed within 1-2 days should be refrigerated or frozen
