Marion Cunningham's Nutmeg Muffins

A few months back, I bought a cookbook for just one recipe. The book was Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book. The recipe was Cream Biscuits, i.e. the most perfect and foolproof biscuits that ever were. I read about them on Molly's site and knew at once that whatever book they were in was a book I should own.

I have something of a history when it comes to buying books based on one great recipe. When I was in college, I bought The New Best Recipe because a friend had made these thick and chewy triple chocolate cookies from it that absolutely blew me away. I bought Nigel Slater's Appetite because our friend Josh made this oxtail stew that had me going, against all good judgement, for a fourth helping. So I wasn't too worried that a biscuit recipe, already available online, had me jonesing for a book. I figured there were plenty of other things in it worth making.

Turns out, I was right.

Nutmeg Muffins were the second recipe I made from The Breakfast Book. The recipe jumped out at me because rarely, if ever, do you see nutmeg in the title of a recipe. Cinnamon, sure – that’s a flavor. I’ve had cinnamon cookies and cinnamon buns and even cinnamon ice cream. But nutmeg is a supporting cast member. It’s what makes béchamel sauce and cheese soufflé and eggnog taste so distinctive, but it’s also just barely there.

Nutmeg muffins aren't the sort of thing I’d think to make, but here was this book, which I’d bought on impulse because of some biscuits, and it was claiming the “Last Word in Nutmeg Muffins.” Better follow instructions.

I perched on a stool and dutifully grated one-and-a-half whole nutmegs. Did she really mean 1.5 whole nutmegs? Is it supposed to take this long? Am I really breaking a sweat from grating nutmeg? When it was all grated, I beheld the fruits of my labor:

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That’s a whole lot of nutmeg. Yowza.

Mysteriously missing from the ingredient list? Vanilla. Or, come to think of it, any other flavoring at all. This is a bare-bones muffin batter with nutmeg carrying the heavy lift. After making them, and restraining yourself multiple times from adding just a splash of vanilla, you might be as surprised as I was to bite into a muffin still hot from its bake and learn that it is delicious.

The nutmeg is a subtle flavor, but it isn’t bland. It’s there, and it’s actually quite complex, if you give it your attention.  With a spot of jam, these muffins are perfect. Having served them once to guests and once to just my unsuspecting wife, I guarantee folks will look at them puzzled and ask you what secret thing you tucked inside. You’ll tell them it’s just nutmeg; they won’t believe you. And then, maybe they’ll be as intrigued as I was by the subtle genius of this recipe that they’ll figure there must be other great recipes where it came from, so they’ll buy the book. And they’ll be right.

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Marion Cunningham's Nutmeg MuffinsAdapted from The Breakfast Book Makes 12 muffins

Note: When making a bechamel or a souffle. maybe you use ground nutmeg from the jar. You can't do that here. Nutmeg is the star of the show; it must be fresh. You can get it at Indian markets, some Whole Foods, specialty stores, and online. As my friend Josh told me, the first time he cooked with fresh whole nutmeg, he promptly took his jar of ground nutmeg off the shelf and threw it away. Now that's a meaningful difference.

2 cups of flour ¾ cup sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 ½ whole nutmegs, grated 1 egg ¾ cup heavy cream ¾ cup milk 5 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400° and grease a muffin tin. Even if you line it with paper, spray the liners. These muffins really stick. If you have silicone liners, you’re in the clear. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and grated nutmeg. In a separate medium bowl, beat together the egg, cream, and milk until mixture is smooth. Add butter and stir to combine; little bits of the butter will solidify, which is totally fine.

Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients all at once. Use a fork to mix the batter together just until the streaks of flour disappear. (Incidentally: have I ever told you that I mix almost all batter with a fork? Most are too thick for whisks. Forks are the secret weapon of batter mixing. Anyway.)

Use a ¼-cup measure to scoop muffin batter into the tins. You’re aiming to fill the tins ¾ of the way full. Once you’ve added batter to all 12 tins, distribute whatever’s left evenly.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, until just starting to turn light brown. Remove from the oven and set on a rack to cool for 5 minutes, or – whom are we kidding – be a good host and bring’em straight to the table so folks can dig in while they’re piping hot.

April Bloomfield's Porridge

So far, it's been the kind of month where I'm eating lunch from food trucks and takeout for dinner at the office. Stew season is slipping away, and I haven't nearly had my fill. (Though, just to be clear, I've had more than enough winter weather. Who's ready for spring?)

In weeks like these, where I feel constantly behind, it's hard to find down time at night. As a result, I occasionally take the extra 20 minutes at home in the morning to make a proper breakfast. I understand this flexibility to be a luxury; these days, most of my friends are packing diaper bags and hustling a herd of children out the door every morning. But for me, those 20 minutes make me feel civilized and satisfied.

In spring, it's yogurt, granola, and some frozen blueberries (which I rinse with warm water to thaw). But it's still March, and much as I'd like to deny it, it's still pretty cold out. For frosty mornings like this one, I humbly recommend this porridge.

I'll cut right to the chase: this porridge, it is salty. I mean, it's seriously got a punch of salt. But, as April says, after that first hit of "whoa, savory!", the porridge fades into milky sweetness. Oatmeal is a humble food, but this porridge feels somehow luxurious. Which, incidentally, makes it the perfect porridge for an ever-slightly-slower weekday morning.

For those of you without time to spare on workdays: not every nice weekend breakfast must include biscuits or pancakes (though if you're making those, I recommend these and these. And these. Okay okay, one more.) When I visited Jess and Eli last year, Jess gave me options for brunch, and one of those was oatmeal. I loved that she'd make oatmeal for company. What a revelation! Of course, oatmeal is the perfect company-for-brunch food. Make a big pot and let guests dress it up as they wish. So I guess I'm saying, this weekend, let this oatmeal be your porridge-for-company recipe. It won't disappoint. If anything, your guests will think you brilliant. Yea, brilliant.

April Bloomfield's PorridgeAdapted from A Girl and Her Pig, April Bloomfield's new book, which just won the Food52 Piglet award and almost as quickly found its way into my library; it's a fantastic book. You will learn a ton from reading and cooking Bloomfield's recipes. See here for a lovely review by Stanley Tucci.

Serves 2

As I said above, this porridge is Salty, with a capital s. That's why I love it. If you're nervous about the salt and want to start slow, reduce the quantity to 1 teaspoon. Also, if you don't have salt that is truly flaky, as Maldon is, reduce the quantity even further. You should probably use only about 3/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt.

1 1/2 cups milk (preferably whole but whatever you have is fine), plus more for serving 1 1/2 cups water 1 1/2 teaspoons Maldon or other flaky sea salt; if using fine salt, use less - start at 3/4 teaspoon and adjust as needed 1/2 cup steel-cut oats 1/2 cup rolled (not quick-cooking) oats 2 tablespoons maple syrup, maple sugar, maple butter, or brown sugar (I used maple butter, which I happened to have, and it was delicious)

bring milk, water, and salt to a simmer in a medium pot over high heat. When liquid starts to simmer, add both oats, stir to combine, and reduce heat to medium. Cook the oats at a steady simmer, adjusting the heat as necessary and stirring occasionally to prevent the mixture from boiling over. At 20 minutes, the steel-cut oats will be just cooked and the rolled oats will have melted into the porridge.

Taste the porridge. Salty! You're now going to adjust the flavor by adding maple syrup or brown sugar to taste. I used the full 2 tablespoons, and maybe even a wink more to serve, but start with 1 and see where you are. You want the porridge to start salty and then fade into sweetness. What I'm about to say will sound a bit blasphemous, but the balance of salty and sweet is a much more refined, successful version of what those instant oatmeal packets are trying to accomplish. Here, it works.

Once you've achieved the balance of salty and sweet, spoon the porridge into bowls and top with a splash of cold milk and maybe a pinch more of brown sugar or a dribble of maple syrup. Serve immediately.

Corn-Scallion Muffins

I know folks can get particular about their cornbread. The southerners have their version, savory and packed stiff with cornmeal. The Yankees swear by something sweeter, softer, moister. To loyalists, altering either recipe can amount to heresy.

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I'm a northerner, of course, and in keeping with the customs of my clan, I like a sweet, soft, moist cornbread, with plenty of butter and maybe a dip of jam. I also like it on Thanksgiving, dunked in gravy and spread with cranberry sauce. That I am no purist goes without saying.

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Corn muffins live, somehow, above the fray. You can put more cornmeal in them, or less. Add corn kernels, if you please. What the heck: even add maple syrup. It's all kosher.

That's why I'm here to tell you all about these fantastic corn muffins. Straying radically from tradition, they're packed with scallions and sour cream, gruyere cheese, and something totally unexpected - cumin seeds. So no, not exactly traditional; but they're muffins, so it's okay.

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We ate them at Sunday brunch, and then had them again the next evening alongside a bowl of vegetarian chili. They'll keep at room temperature for about 4 days. On day 4, I halved and toasted one, and it was as good as new.

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And listen: between you and me, if you decide that instead of baking these in a muffin tin, you'd rather pour all the batter into one big, 8x8 square tin or 8" cast iron pan to make a single massive muffin (that subsequently can be cut into squares or slices), that's cool. You can even call it cornbread; I won't judge you.

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Corn-Scallion MuffinsVery slightly adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain Makes 12 muffins

So here's the deal: Kim Boyce says this makes 10 big muffins - the kind with floppy hats that bake on the tops of the muffin tins. But when I make muffins, I want 12 of them - a full tray. I'm okay with smaller muffins with muffin-sized tops, I just want a full tray of muffins. Irrational? Possibly. If you want to do things her way, you'll need two muffin tins, in each of which you bake 5 large muffins, alternating cups in filling so the muffins have room to spill over the top. If you do things my way, you're in luck: this batter is enough for 12 normal-sized muffins. Go figure.

1.5 cups sliced green onions 2 teaspoons cumin seed 5 tablespoons unsalted butter salt and pepper to taste 2 cups grated Gruyère or similar, about 5 ounces

1 cup corn flour (I prefer one with a bit of coarseness, but any will do_ 1 cup white whole wheat flour (can sub whole wheat pastry, regular whole wheat, or white) 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1.5 cups yogurt (Boyce uses sour cream, but yogurt lightened them, I think) 2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter the muffin tins, and really, I mean butter them. If you're using liners, butter or spray those. These muffins stick. If making 10 big muffins (see headnote), butter the tops of the tins as well.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add cumin and toast until you smell it, and maybe some seeds start to pop (2-3 minutes). Then add the butter. When the butter melts fully and begins to foam, up, add the onion, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until the onion softens. Remove from the heat and let cool while you make the batter.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Stir in the grated cheese, then the onion-cumin-butter mixture.

Whisk together the yogurt and eggs. Add to the dry ingredients and gently stir to combine.

Fill the cups of the muffin tins about 3/4 full for regular muffins, rounded over the edge for bigger ones. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown.

Boyce advises you to twist each muffin out of the cup and put it on its side to cool so you don’t end up with soggy muffins. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Monkey Gingerbread

You guys know about monkey bread, right? It's a pull-apart loaf made from bits of dough that have been rolled in lots of melted butter and sugar. Why it's called monkey bread is anyone's guess (though as Nancy Reagan not-so-famously claimed, the bread got its name ''Because when you make it, you have to monkey around with it." Yep, I think Nancy was onto something.)

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It's the right time for invoking presidents and first ladies; tomorrow is inauguration day, and this city is once again thrumming with the energy of the millions of people here to partake in celebration. We've got house guests, and we've got the tv tuned to the right channels, but this time, instead of venturing out into the cold to be part of history, we're taking it all in from our couch. We and our house guests are planning to cuddle up with something warm and sweet and chewy and delicious. It might just be monkey bread.

A good monkey bread is a thing of beauty, if you get a chance to see it before it's gone. One of my college roommates used to bring monkey bread back with her from winter break, at which point six no-longer-growing ladies would rush the kitchen and destroy the thing in seconds. I'd never made it from scratch before this year, but after discovering how easy it was to make, I haven't exactly held back.

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Now imagine that big pile of dough dipped in butter and sugar was also shot through with warm spices and molasses. I KNOW. What you end up with is a big pile of really flavorful dough, dipped in butter and sugar that - call me crazy - tastes way better than just plain brown sugar. Like some of the molasses secretly defected from the dough and bolted for the sticky bits.

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It's called Monkey (Ginger)Bread, and it came to me by way of Food52, of course. It's creator is a woman named Arielle, who has several winning recipes on the site (that you should check out, and make, and eat.) We ate the monkey gingerbread with chai tea, and were chai a slightly less adult beverage, I'd have felt it totally normal to go put on one of those onesie pajama ensembles with the grippy feet. What can I say? It's warm-cuddly food. Perfect for this weather.

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Monkey GingerbreadAdapted from Food52

For the dough: 1 packet (1 tablespoon) dry yeast pinch sugar 1/3 cup warm water 4 tablespoons (half a stick) butter, divided 1 cup whole milk 1/4 cup molasses 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons kosher salt 2 teaspoons ground ginger 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon nutmegFor dipping: 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted 1 cup packed light brown sugarCombine yeast and a pinch of sugar with the 1/3 cup warm water in a small bowl. Stir to combine, and let sit until frothy.Combine 2 tablespoons butter, milk, and molasses in a small saucepan and heat until the butter has melted. Set aside to cool.In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Add yeast, then milk mixture, and mix for about 5 minutes, until completely smooth. (You can do this with a mixer or with your hands. At the beginning, the dough will be quite sticky; if dough is too sticky to work with, add up to 1/4 cup extra flour, tablespoon by tablespoon, until dough is workable.)Turn dough onto a counter and knead a minute or two longer, until dough is smooth and soft. Coat a large bowl with oil. Put dough in the bowl and turn to coat in oil, then cover with plastic and set in a warm spot until doubled, 1 to 2 hours (depending on the temperature: in winter, it took 2 full hours - in summer, about 1 hour 15 minutes.)Meanwhile, set the remaining 2 tablespoons butter out on the counter to soften, then use them to grease a bundt pan very, very thoroughly. Set the melted butter in one shallow bowl and the brown sugar in another.When the dough has doubled in volume, turn it onto a counter and gently pat it into an 8-inch square. Cut the dough into 64 pieces (into 8 vertically, then 8 horizontally). Dunk each square into the melted butter, then into the brown sugar, and pile the dunked pieces of dough into the buttered bundt pan, turning the pan as you work so the dough balls are distributed evenly. When all the dough has been dunked and piled into the pan, cover the pan and let rise for at least 1 more hour, until balls have puffed up toward the top of the bundt pan. (Mine rose to about 2 inches below the top of the pan; don't sweat how high they get - just make sure they look fluffy and light.)While the dough proofs, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the monkey bread for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven, cool for exactly 5 minutes, then turn onto a cake stand or platter and serve immediately. Monkey bread is not meant to be saved, so please: don't hold back. Eat up.