I buy and eat a ton of fruit. In my kitchen, on any given day, you are just about guaranteed to find the following fruits: Oranges, Bananas, Apples, Strawberries, Blueberries, Grapes, Plums, Pears and in the summer... Peaches, Watermelon, Cantalope and Cherries. Yes, I'm the chick you don't want to be behind in the grocery lane...And I'm a sucker for a bargain... so, when a particular fruit is on sale... I'll stock up on it and forgo another fruit that isn't on sale that week. This also means I'll impulse buy on occassion if something is on sale... for instance... Nectarines. Normally, not something I would think to buy... but at .79/lb, I'm buying some.
Enter Grapefruit.
I've never been a fan of grapefruit. I don't like the bitterness. I don't like the messiness of eating it with a spoon. But the oranges weren't on sale and the grapefruit were and so... I bought some grapefruit.
Poor, poor grapefruit. They sat on my counter for a good while... until finally I thought... well, maybe now, as an adult... I'll like it. So, I cut one open and grabbed myself a spoon and went to town.
Yeah... still don't like it. So, I ended up juicing that grapefruit and freezing the juice for use in another recipe (possibly a martha stewart cookie recipe that calls for grapefruit). But that still left me with another grapefruit. There are lots of recipes for salads that call for grapefruit segments... but... finally, I found a recipe for some Grapefruit Muffins.
They aren't much to look at, but they are moist and sweet, with a hint of the grapefruit flavor. I made mini-ones (thank goodness) and pawned some off on my running partner and then stashed the rest in the freezer before I ate them all.
You can find the original recipe here: Texas Grapefruit Muffins, but I've typed the recipe up below using my own instructions, because theirs REALLY confused me.
Grapefruit Muffins
courtesy of TexaSweet Citrus Marketing
Beware: This batter is like nectar of the gods. Seriously, I could have held the bowl up to my mouth and drank the batter, it's so freaking good.
I used half white whole wheat flour instead of all white flour and I also made a half batch. A half batch completely filled my mini-muffin tin.
Ingredients:
2 red grapefruit
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Peel and section the grapefruit into a strainer over a bowl, separating (and reserving) the juice from the liquid. Set the sections aside, for now.
Measure the grapefruit juice and add enough water to make 1 1/4 cups of liquid. Pour this liquid into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in oats and butter; let stand for 20 minutes covered.
After the 20 minutes, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin pan. Combine remaining ingredients (including your grapefruit segments) into a mixing bowl. Stir in the oats mixture and blend well.
Pour into the greased muffin pan and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.
I don't like grapefruit that much either! However, these muffins sound great. If you could give me a grapefruit without the bitterness, I'm pretty sure I would love it. Hence these muffins. Sweetness plus grapefruit flavor equals deliciousness. I think they look absolutely yummy!
ReplyDeleteI actually love grapefruit - I buy the pink ones all the time. I've never cooked with it before though, so looking forward to making these!
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellently tempting photograph! I am in muffin mode right now and I will definitly be trying these.
ReplyDeletethis sounds absolutly wonderful and i will be making these today
ReplyDeleteAMAZING! I just made these and they were sweet and a little tangy! I need to experiment to where I can make them a little healthier though. MMMM! Thank you for trying them out and Thanks HEB! I used to cashier there for 7 years. I'm now in MD.
ReplyDeleteI used wheat germ instead of oats because it's what I had, added about a cup more flour to get the right consistency and then 1/2 tsp. baking powder to make them more bread-like. Made 18. My husband's a fan, and I think they're some of the best muffins I've made (and I make them at least once a week). If they keep selling 'em 6 for $1 we'll keep eating 'em!
ReplyDeleteGreat recipe - ran out of oatmeal and used dried coconut instead. Also added bits of roasted ginger which made them extra zingy. Also substituted amaranth flour for some of the all purpose (ran out of that too!). We like them a lot - great use of grapefruits!
ReplyDeleteThese were a fantastic way to use up extra grapefruit! I made a few modifications. Instead of adding water, I squeezed the juice of a third grapefruit (one more down!) to get the right amount of liquid. I also found that, like Lindsay, the batter required more flour. The first batch (which followed the recipe as written) was really tasty, but didn't rise very much and was somewhat wet textured. I followed Lindsay's suggestion and added an extra 1 cup of flour mixed with 1/2 tsp baking powder. This time they rose beautifully and were a better consistency. I think it depends on how much 'pulp' you have, but definitely add the baking powder and then judge flour by the wetness of the batter. Cooking full-size muffins also took closer to 30-35 minutes (instead of 15-20). They were 'cooked' at about 25 minutes but took another 10 for the tops to brown. Next time I make these (and I will!) I'll try in a slighlty hotter oven. Thanks for the great new muffin recipe!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the reason for boiling the grapefruit juice?
ReplyDelete