Lawsuit Muffins Indeed!
I don’t know how many of you out there are like me, but I am always browsing the internet and food blogs for new and exciting recipes to add to my ever growing collection (the word document where I’ve saved them all is now 5mb in size - and it’s all just text!), and I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to try them once before I die. It may involve me staying in my kitchen and baking non-stop for a few years, but dangnamit, it will happen!
As part of today’s baking goods extravaganza, I had bought some buttermilk. It was only a litre of the stuff so I wanted to make sure that I used it on something good, so after sitting and pondering for awhile, I remembered Ivonne’s post about the best muffins ever, so I figured that would be as good a starting point as any!
You know what? She was absolutely right.
Me being me, I can never follow any recipe exactly, but I didn’t alter much and to be honest, I don’t think this recipe much alteration at all!
As for whether these muffins deserve the name of ‘Lawsuit‘ muffins - I highly doubt it as whilst I’m sure someone could try and sue you for claiming that these muffins KICK ASS, one taste and they’d drop their lawsuit in a heartbeat! They are exactly as Ivonne said - moist, fluffy and flavourful, the batter itself is mild enough to potentially happily support any fruit flavouring. I used the other half of my punnet of strawberries for this, and they worked marvellously! With such a delightful muffin recipe now in my repetoire, trust me when I say that muffins will be making many more appearances in my kitchen in the future!
Just a note - since the cooking time for these babies is just 25 minutes, you might wanna stick around and keep an eye on them. It’s actually kind of fun as these muffins puff up like you wouldn’t believe - they’re definetely hefty enough to serve as a deliciously decadant breakfast!
I didn’t have any walnuts on hand so I decided to mix up some more of the butter and flour mixture from my strawberry cake, and it worked fantastically well!
So, as Mr. T might say - enough of this jibber-jabber! Onto the recipe!
These muffins have almost an obscenely moist and fluffy crumb, and are so easy to enjoy that you’ll have finished one without even thinking about it!
Lawsuit Buttermilk Muffin Recipe
(from Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice adaptation)
Muffin Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp grated citrus zest or 2 tsp lemon juice
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour *
Pinch of salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1 3/4 - 2 cups fruit (if using large fruits you may want to coarsely chop them)
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C ^ and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Mix together flour, salt, baking powder and bicarb soda in a bowl then set aside.
3. In another bowl, combine the oil, brown sugar, citrus zest/lemon juice and egg. Once combined, stir in the buttermilk and vanilla extract.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix till combined but do not overmix. Once combined gently add the fruit and mix in. Leave to sit for about 5 minutes and check the batter consistency - if it is still quite watery then add a little more flour as the batter should be quite stiff and hold it’s shape.
5. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups and fill pretty much to the top. Don’t do anything silly like smooth the tops over as muffins look tastier when their tops are messily puffed! Sprinkle whichever streusel topping you’re using evenly on top of each muffin and make sure they are well covered as when they cook they expand a lot and suddenly there isn’t as much streusel as you thought there was!
6. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower temperature to 160 degrees C^ and bake for another 10 minutes. When the muffins are done they will spring back when lightly touched.
7. Let the muffins cool in the tray for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Enjoy! (especially if you have a nice cup of tea or hot chocolate!)
* If you’re using fruit flavouring of the liquid kind such as concentrated orange juice, you’ll need to slightly increase your flour amounts so bear this in mind at step 4 when checking the consistency.
^ When dealing with oven temperatures, if you’re using a fan forced oven then cut each baking period short by about 5 minutes, or drop the oven temperature 10 degrees otherwise you risk overbaking.
You can use either of these streusel toppings, the walnut one is the original for this recipe, but if you find yourself without any walnuts, you might give the other one a try 
Nut Streusel Topping
1 tbsp chilled unsalted butter
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts/pecans
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl till you have a crumbly mixture
2. Set aside if using immediately, or store in the fridge till you want to use it.
or
Butter Streusel Topping
60g caster sugar
90g all-purpose flour
1/2 scant tsp of baking powder
1/4 scant tsp of bicarb soda
80g chilled butter, cut into cubes
3 tsp demerara sugar (coffee sugar will suffice if you don’t have any demerara)
1. Combine all ingredients except demerara sugar, mixing with your fingertips till it resembles coarse breadcrumbs and has a sandy texture.
2. Use a fork to combine the demerara sugar with the dough, then set aside or store in the fridge till you need it if not using immediately.
Technorati Tags: muffins, buttermilk, baking, streusel, recipes, breakfast, sweets, snacks, fruit
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Thanh from I Eat Therefore I Am
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Comments
Natalia I pity the fool who doesn’t like these muffins! (Hahaha, I haven’t heard from Mr. T in a long time…) I have a huge list of recipes from other blogs and websites to try to that I will someday make too. Now I definitely have to add these to the list!
jasmine I love the entire “lawsuit” angle of this endeavour…perhaps if the original writer understood copyright, she’d realise what she’s coming off as to some of us. I’m waiting for her to patent the concept of a muffin, cookie etc…
j…in a snarky mood.
Ellie Ivonne - thank you thank you thank you! I honestly can’t thank you enough! And I feel the same way - I have no need for any other muffin recipe now that I have this one! I took some in to work today and they were met with gasps of delight by all who managed to get a mouthful 
Paz - Aww shucks, glad you liked them
Natalia - Hehehe, Mr. T is the best! This food blogging is a dangerous business - there’s just so much to cook and so little time! I definetely think you should give these a shot though, they’re too good not to try!
Jasmine - I know what you mean, but you’ve gotta laugh! At least, I *hope* the original writer of the recipe was having a bit of a laugh when she named them! Did you see that post over at…darn, can’t remember which blog now, but they mentioned how the Jamie Oliver books state that you cannot make ‘any unauthorised adaptation’ of any of his recipes. How much of a laugh is that!
Kat - I’m making them again on this weekend, so I’ll make sure to make a couple of chocolate ones for you
Kat mmm, can’t wait to see the chocolate ones
oopsy, I didn’t know his recipes couldn’t be adapted without approval…I think I adapted one of his recipes :0
Ellie Kat, I seriously wouldn’t worry about it! I hardly know anyone who cooks exactly by the book, so for his legal team to put that disclaimer in his books is utterly ridiculous…which is the jist of the discussion that was occuring on the blog where I read it
gilly YUM! These look fantastic! Thanks for sharing the variations!
I remember Ivonne’s post on them, and I trust all things cream-puffy - so they just HAD to be a hit!
Ellie Gilly - no worries 
Glad you liked them! And I know how you feel - having had such a success with this recipe, I’ve got to try more of Ivonne’s wisdom in my own kitchen!
Helen I am not a big muffin fan, but these are our favorites, ever, hands down, no doubt about it!
Ellie Helen - to be honest, I’m not a major muffin fan either…but then again, I’ve never been able to make them, and the ones I get at cafes are always dry and tasteless, so maybe I’ve just never had a good muffin Till now, that is!
Sarah I’m planning to make these for my coffee date tomorrow morning with Mr. Right, Ellie.
ike I would like to bake your buttermilk muffins. I live in the US. What is the equivalent of 160 degrees. Please explain, if you can. I enjoyed your blog. Best regards from New Jersey, USA
Ellie Sarah - hope they went well
Ike - if you’re using farenheit, then you’ll need to bake these at around 320F
Bravissima!
I’m so glad that you tried the muffins. They really are the best I’ve ever had. So much so that I don’t even bother with other muffin books anymore.
I love your variations and good point on sticking around to keep an eye on them!