Ginger Peach Muffins

Sometimes you know certain flavors go together well. Take peaches and ginger. They make a great match. There's ginger cookies served with fresh peaches, a little ginger in the whipped cream for peach shortcakes, and ginger and peach jam. It's a mix that works. But, every once a while, you come across a classic flavor combination done in a way that makes it even better than you knew it would be. The ginger and peach flavor mix in these muffins was a wow, like I'd never tasted it before. Freshly grated ginger is mixed into the batter along with chopped crystallized ginger, and fresh ginger is also added to a melted butter and honey syrup used to coat the peach slices that sit on top of each muffin. It could have been the one-two punch of fresh and crystallized ginger or maybe that peach season is winding down and I really wanted to savor these, but for simple muffins, these puppies caught me by surprise. They're from Good to the Grain which means they're also made with an interesting mix of flours in addition to the interesting flavor mix. Here, oat flour is combined with all-purpose and whole wheat flours for a very tender crumb and mild, nuttiness.

You start by grating lots of fresh ginger and letting that lovely fragrance start to fill your kitchen. A little of the grated ginger was added to a skillet along with butter and honey, and the rest was left in a mixing bowl. The butter and honey in the skillet was melted, and sliced peaches were added and coated with the syrup and then the pan was set aside. The dry ingredients were sifted together, and those included oat flour, all-purpose and whole wheat flours, sugar, dark brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, the wet ingredients were added to the remaining grated ginger including melted and cooled butter, whole milk, sour cream, an egg, and finely chopped crystallized ginger. Wet ingredients were mixed into the dry, and the batter was ready. In all the muffin recipes in this book, Kim Boyce recommends using only every other cup in a muffin pan. By leaving every other cup empty, the heat circulates well and the muffins rise better. I had learned of this trick from a different muffin recipe, and it really does work well. So, the batter was poured into every other muffin cup, each muffin was topped with two peach slices, and the syrup was spooned on top of the peaches before they went into the oven.

Of course they smelled amazing as they baked, and of course they looked pretty with the peach slices on top. There was no doubting that these were going to be good. I just had no idea how good. I thought I knew all about peaches with ginger, but it's nice to be taken by surprise like this.

Cranberry-Cornmeal Quick Bread

I guess I’ve finally gotten around to cooking from November magazines. This quick bread was in the November issue of Living, and the title alone made me want to bake it. Cranberry and cornmeal sounded like a great combination. Then, I read on into the recipe. I admit to having several food issues with ingredients that I usually avoid. One of those many issues is with crystallized ginger. I don’t even know why. I like ginger in both sweet and savory applications, and nibbling on crystallized ginger is perfectly fine. For some reason though, when baked goods include chopped crystallized ginger, I often omit it. Well, I decided to get over it and just go with the original intent of this recipe. At last, my mind might have been changed forever about this ingredient. The little bits of chewy, gingery goodness throughout the loaf were lovely in the cornmeal crumb.

A sauce was made from cranberries, melted butter, and sugar. That mixture was cooked until the cranberries started to pop, and at that point, the sauce had thickened. Fresh cranberries were suggested, but I used frozen, and they worked perfectly fine. I also added a few extra cranberries just because I love their tart flavor. The cranberries and sauce were transferred to a loaf pan and left to cool. The batter was made from butter, sugar, eggs, and a whisked together mixture of flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then, the chopped crystallized ginger was folded into the batter. Something that worked well for me was to toss the chopped crystallized ginger with a small amount of flour. That way, the pieces didn’t stick all together in one clump in the middle of the batter. The thick batter with well-distributed chopped crystallized ginger was spooned over the cranberries and carefully smoothed. The loaf baked for about 35 minutes.

My only complaint is that my quick bread didn’t rise to the nice, tall height seen in the magazine photo. I’m not sure why it didn’t since I used the same size pan and same quantities of ingredients in the batter. My baking powder is brand new too. Other than that minor quibble, I was very pleased with this. The cooled loaf was turned out to allow the cranberries to sit on top like jewels. It was sweet and tart and the cornmeal and crystallized ginger flavors worked together very well. And, just like that, I might be over my crystallized ginger thing.