In honor of the Easter holiday I added a little bunny that Mark assembled from LEGOS to my display of freshly baked zucchini muffins. And, since I think hot tea is the perfect beverage to accompany them, that’s what you’ll find in my new mug, which is a recent gift from a friend.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
They’d be ideal for holiday brunch
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“Oh, Mary Therese, I love it,” choir director Ann Manganiello said, biting into a muffin fresh from the Times Leader test kitchen.
“It’s delicious,” soprano Suzanne Mulvey said. “Very moist.”
“Very, very nice,” alto Joan Achhammer agreed.
“Anything with pineapple and zucchini has to be good,” Mary Ellen Arasin put in.
“It’s wonderful,” said Kris Bergold. “And I’m so glad you brought this because I didn’t have time for supper.”
Judging from the chorus of comments such as “delicious” and “so good” that I heard Tuesday evening, it seems I made the choir at St. Nicholas – St. Mary Parish in Wilkes-Barre happy during our Holy Week rehearsal.
Some choir folks began munching immediately; others waited until a break mid-way through practice, and a few took muffins home for breakfast the next day.
My fellow alto Mary Ann Butera deserves credit for giving me the recipe, and she told the group the muffins freeze well. “Take them out of the freezer the night before you want to eat them,” she said, “and they’ll be ready for breakfast the next day.”
Mary Ann typically makes and freezes a lot of muffins when local zucchini is in season. I know her muffins taste great, because she gave me a sample a few weeks ago as a taste-of-summer treat. Ever since, I’d been eager to make some of my own, and when I recently spotted zucchini at a supermarket, I bought some and started baking.
The muffins, which likely would be a nice addition to an Easter brunch, pleased the newsroom taste testers as well.
“I love it,” reporter and taste tester Jen Learn-Andes said earlier Tuesday. “It’s delectable, a perfect blend.”
“I like the spices you used,” page designer Ashley Bringmann said. “I like the moistness inside.”
“It’s good,” columnist Bill O’Boyle said. “But it would be better with a big bottle of ice cold milk.”
“I like the walnuts and the pineapple; they complement each other,” news editor Liz Baumeister said. “I will be clipping this recipe,” she said, adding she intends to make it without raisins.
Of course you can skip the raisins, and the walnuts, too, if that is to your liking.
Other tips from Mary Ann are to make sure you drain the crushed pineapple, and to fold the zucchini into the batter soon after grating it rather than allowing it to sit.
She usually gets 24 muffins from this recipe. I made each muffin somewhat shallow so I’d have more to pass around; my yield was 36. Liz in the newsroom was the only person who asked what kind of flour I’d used. Instead of 3 cups of all-purpose, I used 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 of whole wheat. She said she liked the way that added to the overall wholesome flavor of the muffins.
But the comment that mattered most to me was the one from Mary Ann: “Good job,” she said.
Whew!
ZUCCHINI MUFFINS
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoons nutmeg
2 cups unpeeled grated zucchini
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts, chopped
Cream sugar and oil together. Add eggs and vanilla and beat. In another bowl sift together all dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture. Fold into mixture zucchini, pineapple, raisins and walnuts. Pour into well-greased and floured muffin tins, or use cupcake liners. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. You can also make loaf cakes from this recipe as well, baking them at 350 for one hour or until they spring back when touched.
