Tuesdays With Dorie: Buttermilk Crumb Muffins

Today's foray for Tuesdays With Dorie was Buttermilk Crumb Muffins. After October, where we had two yeasted adventures (one of which I still haven't done yet), it was a relief to have something simple like muffins for today. The batter is relatively simple to assemble: Shortening is blended into brown sugar and flour (I used butter instead of shortening here), and a portion of that mixture is reserved for the crumb topping. After spices and leavening are added to the remaining dry ingredients, eggs and buttermilk go in, and that's pretty much it.

I did half of the batter plain and half with dried cranberries. The dried-cranberry batter is in the photo above.

I ended up with two dozen muffins. I tried one while they were still warm, and while I liked the gentle flavor from the spices, I can't say that I loved this recipe. The muffins are kind of meh. The crumb topping is unimpressive, and the muffins feel somewhat insubstantial. I wasn't surprised that they didn't rise with a nice domed top (they don't look that way in the photo in the book, either), but to me, the flat top makes them look unappealing. Since I have scads of other muffin recipes that I really like, I don't know that I'll revisit this one.

For the recipe (and to see how a nice batch of these muffins turned out), visit Easier Than Pie.