Golden Gingerbread Muffins

I’ve always loved gingerbread anytime of the year. Anything with cinnamon and cloves and ginger is ok with me. I have been wondering how to turn the flavors into a breakfast pastry for a while. This is probably just the beginning of the experiment and is as basic as it gets, but sometimes simple is THE solution. These are a gingerbread-like flavor quick bread with more puff to them thanks to the addition of baking powder. Like any good northerner, I studded the batter with golden raisins. Topped off with an easy cinnamon streusel and you’ve got a good December morning muffin.

GOLDEN GINGERBREAD MUFFINS

Batter

3/4 c granulated sugar

1/4 c molasses

3 eggs (chicken or flax)

1/3 c oil (canola, sunflower, veg) or melted butter)

2/3 c milk (cultured dairy, reg dairy or non-dairy)

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda (make it an ample scoop)

pinch of salt

2-3 t ground ginger

1 t cinammon

1 t cloves

A couple handfuls of golden raisins

Streusel

1/3 c all purpose flour

1/3 c brown sugar

1 t cinammon

1-2 T oil or melted butter

Set your oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare muffin tins.

Make the streusel. If you are using butter option, be sure to start the melting process now. Add the flour, sugar and cinnamon to a small bowl. Drizzle melted butter or oil on top and mix with a fork. You want a slightly wet and crumbly mixture. Add more oil or butter to achieve your desired streusel consistency. A good streusel rule to follow is that you should be able to pick up a bit with your fingers. It shouldn't feel like soggy sand or completely dry sand. It should be something in between. Set aside.

Mix wet ingredients by hand until just blended. Add all of the dry ingredients except for the raisins from batter list to the wet. Stir paying careful attention to edges of bowl and do not overmix. One way to avoid overmixing is to use a fold method to get the ingredients friendly with one another. Spend your time spinning the bowl with one hand as the other scrapes along the outer edge of batter along the bowl’s edge. At the end of one rotation of the bowl, bring the hand with the fork or spoon into the center of the bowl with a healthy scoop of the batter. Repeat this motion until the little flour pockets are mostly smoothed out. Add your raisins and give a couple more folds.

Distribute into prepared muffin liners filling about 3/4 of the way full. Sprinkle on your streusel.

Bake for about 20 minutes. The tops should be browned and when you press the tops there should be some sponge to it and they should bounce back. They are good warm, but the ginger flavor develops as they cool. Up to you.