Vegetarian Times Reader Recipe Contest v. 2010

Guys! I'm famous! (Kinda.)

 

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="437" caption="My recipe, photo from the Vegetarian Times website (photo: Carin Krasner)"][/caption]

I've been keeping this a secret for a while, since I pretty much thought I was still imagining the email I got a while back from the food editor of Vegetarian Times (the wonderful Mary Margaret Chappell). Back in... June?... I entered the 2010 Reader Recipe Contest on a whim, with a heavily modified version of my mom's cardamom bread.  I didn't expect to hear back, but, well... obviously I did. You may remember a veganized version here from last year, but this one isn't quite the same.  You see, with all that no-knead bread I've been baking I got to thinking if enriched doughs like brioche and challah could be made into no-knead recipes, I could sure as heck make Mom's cardamom braid hands-off  as well. Anyway, go make it! It's lovely with coffee and lingonberry preserves--or cream cheese, or just by itself.

Oh, and true confession: I've been waiting for this edition to come out in part because even though I have my other recipe (the kneaded versions) back in the blog archives and on my Google docs with every other recipe I work on, for some reason I scribbled my notes for the contest entry on the back of a receipt--and accidentally threw it away when I was cleaning. Oops.  I guess I'll be baking this week!

Lemon-raspberry "surprise" muffins- fixed

Remember back in junior high home economics when you had to learn mis en place (but not the fancy term for it) and how to measure everything out beforehand? Yeah, I don't do it either. (I do usually have a plan, but it rarely involves setting out rows of little bowls full of flour and sugar.) My favorite home ec recipe was for "surprise" muffins--a plain muffin with a dollop of jam baked into the center, resulting in a surprise bite of [usually molten] red berry goodness.  I've been meaning to recreate these for a while now, for old times' sake, and finally decided on a lemon muffin with raspberry jam filling--because who doesn't like lemon and raspberry?



Lemon-raspberry "surprise" muffins (makes 12)

3/4 cup non-dairy milk (if using vanilla-flavored, reduce vanilla by 1/2 tsp)

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons' worth)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

zest from two lemons

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup white whole wheat flour, or more all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4-1/3 cup raspberry preserves

2 Tbsp turbinado sugar for sprinkling, optional




Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Mix the milk, sugar, lemon juice, oil, and zest in a large mixing bowl. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until well-combined. Spoon batter into the muffin tin, only filling 1/2 full. You will have leftover batter. Set this aside for now.  Lightly drop 1 tsp preserves in the center of each muffin cup, then spoon a bit more batter in to cover the jam. (You should have enough left over from the initial fill to get about 3/4-full tins.)  Sprinkle each muffin with a little turbinado sugar if you're feeling a little fancy! Bake for 22-25 minutes, until tops are golden. Allow to cool slightly in the tin.  These are best served warm.

*Edited: ACK. I forgot to type in that you need 1/2 cup canola oil. Sorry folks! The recipe's fixed.  Also, I added a picture. :)