Red Grape Muffins

Sense of Home

These cake-like muffins are crunchy on the outside, moist on the inside, and when you bite into a grape there is a wonderful burst of flavor.  I like my breakfast muffins to be more of the nuts and twigs variety, but my husband prefers the cake-like variety, and since he is my number one dish dryer extrodinaire (we wash by hand), I like to keep him happy.  There were no complaints from me though, these muffins were perfect for Sunday morning breakfast with a strong cup of coffee.  In fact the recipe they were taken from calls them individual cakes, but I thought muffin was a better description after I made a couple simple changes to the recipe.

The original recipe comes from Gourmet magazine, as many of my recipes have lately, and calls for Vin Santo or another sweet wine.  I chose to go with organic concord grape juice, thus turning these into a muffin rather than an individual cake.  We don't drink sweet wine and I preferred not to purchase a bottle just for this recipe.  One of the things I am most proud of with these muffins is that for the first time I made muffins without muffin papers and they came out perfectly, no sticking.  I think the key was the generous amount of butter I used to grease the pan with, and dusting the pan with flour, my simply spraying the pan with cooking spray wasn't enough.  I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before, this is what I do when making a dessert bread, it is just a different shaped pan, ah well, live and learn.

Red Grape Muffins
~inspired by a recipe from Gourmet~
8 large muffins

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
2/3 cup concord grape juice
1 1/4 cups seedless red grapes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. with rack in middle.  Generously butter muffin cups and dust with flour, knocking out excess.

Whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat butter with 2/3 cup granulated sugar using an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add eggs1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in zest.

Add flour mixture in 2 batches alternately with grape juice, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until just incorporated.

Toss grapes with remaining tablespoon of flour, then fold into batter.

Divide batter among muffin cups.  Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons granulated sugar.  Bake until golden and springy to the touch, 18 to 20 minutes.  Cool in pan 5 minutes, then loosen with a knife and remove.  Cool to warm, 5 to 10 minutes more.


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