For the past three months, I haven’t eaten sweets. How, you ask, can a baker do such a thing? What would possess someone who clearly loves desserts to deny herself all manner of cakes, cookies, chocolates, and pastries for months? The simple answer is: her scale (which nearly got hurled out the window after Christmas). And so with only 14 days to go in Operation No Sweets ‘Til Denver (I’m going to Denver for work two weeks from now), I sought out something that was baked, but not dessert-like. Enter the peanut butter honey muffin.
One could argue that such a muffin is dessert-like, but it contains no sugar, only honey, so I put it in the same category as corn muffins or blueberry muffins; they are more of a breakfast item than a dessert (I mean, some people might have blueberry muffins for dessert, but I certainly wouldn’t).
Most of the time when I read a recipe, I have a good sense of how the finished product will taste. I expected far more peanut butter flavor in these muffins, which I’m sorry to say turned out bland. The original recipe called for only one cup of flour, but the batter was too runny, so I added about six generous teaspoons of additional flour, one at a time, to shore it up. I suspect that this may have altered the flavor, so next time I’d like to try adding crunchy peanut butter in a greater amount, and perhaps some brown sugar in addition to the honey to balance the texture.
Ingredients
- 1 cup plus 5 to 6 generous teaspoons flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3/4 cup milk
- peanut butter, honey, or honey butter for serving
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners.
In a medium bowl, stir together baking powder, salt, and one cup of the flour.
Add vegetable oil, peanut butter, and honey; mix with a fork, using a cutting-in motion like you would for pastry, until crumbs form.
Add milk and stir together; add additional flour, 1 generous teaspoon at a time, until the batter is no longer runny.
Using a 2-inch cookie scoop, scoop batter into liners, filling about three-quarters full.
Bake 12-16 minutes, until tops are very lightly golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack or serve warm; I recommend serving with peanut butter and honey, or honey butter, to enhance the flavor.
amy bakes in the 'burgh 