Recipe: Peach Upside-Down Muffins

Peach Upside-Down muffins… what a great name….I love all things peach… so I just had to try this recipe.

I bought a new book recently …. and decided to try some of the recipes…. if this first recipe is any indication… I got myself a stellar bargain… I found the book at a book outlet… it’s called Muffins Galore by Catherine Atkinson… this recipe was terrific… a little tricky to get out of the pan… but worth the effort… they look and taste fabulous.

I do have a small pet peeve about the recipe though… I cannot understand for the life of me… why people write confusing directions… or make the directions a pain to do… we need to make it easy for home cooks to use these recipes..

The recipe says to divide the butter and brown sugar evenly between the twelve muffin cups of the tin… easy enough …right? Not so fast… the recipe lists the brown sugar as ½ a cup…. and the butter as 1/3 of a cup…. nice… now what? You are left to either eyeball it… as Rachael Ray likes to say… which is not usually recommended when baking… or figure it out… okay I admit it isn’t rocket science… BUT wait… well… let’s do the brown sugar first…

A ½ a cup of brown sugar … ½ cup has 8 tablespoons… ahhh but the pan has 12 muffin cups…. So you take it a step further… each tablespoon equals 3 teaspoons… so… 8 tablespoons is equal to 24 teaspoons… now that you can divide by 12… so you need to put 2 teaspoons of brown sugar in each muffin cup… not advanced algebra … but why the heck couldn’t she just say that in the recipe… is it so hard to say drop 2 teaspoons of brown sugar in each muffin cup?.... I happen to know the conversions because I blog almost every day and need to do the calculation when adapting recipes to serving amounts… but the average person would need to take the time to look it up.

Now for the butter… the best way I can tell you to evenly divide a 1/3 of a cup butter into 12 muffin cups… is… cut the stick of butter where the 1/3 of a cup mark is on the wrapper… then cut the 1/3 cup stick down the middle… keeping the two halves together… now cut it into thirds across the width … then cut each third in half… (you will need to eyeball this)…

To evenly divide the batter… use a large serving spoon to drop the batter into the muffin cups. Fill each with one spoonful then go back through adding a little more to each until the batter is used up… they will end up being about ¾ full.

The recipe was extremely easy to make… but as I mentioned before… very tricky to get them all out of the muffin tin. I have a couple of tips to help you.

TIPS

You must use a non-stick muffin tin… I used one and they still stuck a bit… they all eventually came out… but most stuck at first. Use your best quality non-stick muffin tin.

DO NOT use paper muffin cups to line the muffin tin.

Grease the muffin tin well… I used margarine… grease it heavily.

Let the muffins cool as directed for 10 minutes… then turn the tin over onto a large cutting board… I used my large white one that can go in the dishwasher… it will get sticky. Tap the muffin cups gently… if any come out… quickly pick them up and flip them over…. place them on a plate peach side up… now for the rest of them..

Carefully run a thin knife around the sides to loosen them.. flip them over… take the ones that come out and place on the plate… repeat until they all are out… tapping and running your knife around the edge… eventually they all come out…

A number of my peaches stayed in the pan… use a small fork and get them out and place them on top of the muffins in the indentation the peach left on the muffin… they all go in easily and stay.

The recipe says to serve warm… which is okay.. but as with sticky buns… they are easier to handle cool and taste just as good as warm ones.

I followed the recipe pretty much as written in the book except I converted some of the amounts for you and included more specific instructions. The original recipe calls for superfine sugar… I used regular sugar.

I used “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light” margarine.

They look really terrific on a pretty serving plate or cake plate… perfect for a brunch buffet.

If you like peaches and like sticky buns… this recipe is for you…







Recipe: Peach Upside-Down Muffins

All you need:

1/3 cup cold butter, divided
½ cup light brown sugar
1 (14 oz.) can peach slices in juice, drained
1 1/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons margarine, melted

All you need to do:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place a small strainer over a small bowl and drain the peaches. Set aside.

Heavily grease a non-stick 12 cup muffin tin. Set aside.

Cut your cold butter into 12 even pieces and drop one piece in each muffin cup. *See post for how to cut the butter into even pieces.

Drop 2 teaspoons of light brown sugar into each muffin cup.

Put the muffin tin into a 375 degree oven for about 5 minutes or until butter and sugar have melted.

Remove from the oven.

Add 1 slice of peach to each cup… making sure they are laying over.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt… mix well.

In a mixing bowl beat the two eggs lightly. Add the sour cream and melted margarine and beat until smooth.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a spoon until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon the batter on top of the peach slices in the muffin cups, dividing it evenly. The muffin cups will be about ¾ full. *See post for tips on how to do this.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes (I baked mine for 25 minutes) or until muffins have risen and are golden brown.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

Then invert muffins onto a cutting board… flip them over and place on a serving plate… *See post for tips on removing the muffins.