Chunks of dried apricots and chopped pistachios flavor these delicate green tea muffins for fruit and nut muffins with a twist!
Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook
Since I bake muffins many times a month (I think our family's Friday Night Pizza Night pizzas are the only items I fix more consistently) I like to play around with themes. I was going for a festive St Patrick's Day muffin here--naturally green colored with chunks of orange to echo the Irish flag. Clearly, I'm not Irish, but I'm happy to eat and drink and celebrate anyway! While I admit I failed with the color, the flavor of these muffins makes them worthy of a Muffin Monday post.
After my success with naturally coloring pizza dough green with spinach, and naturally colored green, gold, and purple braided Mardi Gras bread, I figured green muffins would be a cinch. However, something about the quick nature of muffin batter does not lend itself to the deeper colors, I'm afraid. Much like my Beet Horseradish Muffins, the batter color bakes out into an orange muffin with a tinge of my goal color--green. But hey! No artificial dyes in these muffins so there's something to hang your . . . apron . . . on!
 |
| Robert Barker remains hungrily hopeful that I'll have a catastrophic accident on the way to the oven. |
If not a vibrant green color, what do these muffins have to offer? Simple--they are a refreshing fruit-and-nut muffin, great for breakfast or a snack. We prefer them served warm with plenty of butter. They're lightly sweet, with a nice bit of crunch from the pistachios and a tender bite from the apricots. They're unexpected--I've been craving raisin walnut bread and these muffins are a faster way t get that fruit/nut flavor while my bread dough was rising . . . and rising . . . and rising. [Yes, I baked a loaf of apricot walnut cinnamon chip swirl bread while also making these muffins. I need to work on my swirling technique, but boy does the toast hit the spot!]
If you'd like to make a non-traditional nod to St Patrick's Day, give these a shot. After all, you can't eat corned beef and cabbage for breakfast . . . or can you? I went there with these Corned Beef Hash Waffles, so I suppose you can.
