peach ginger muffins.

I love making things as complicated and difficult as possible.  If you ask me to bring a dish to a party I will spend several days deciding on a dish (usually the most complicated one) and then I will decide that one dish isn’t enough and I really need to make two things (what if someone doesn’t like the first option!) and then I will fret that it doesn’t look perfect (because appearance is everything).  I apparently like to torture myself. 

This past Friday, it was my turn to bring in breakfast for my group at work.  Generally, this means people bring in bagels, juice, and several types of cream cheese but I refused to do that.  This was my chance to make the plethora of breakfast recipes I have stashed away (because making a dozen muffins for Tyler and me always seems like a silly idea.)  I relished in the thought of making cinnamon buns and breakfast cakes and lots of muffins.  I somehow managed to convince myself that I only needed to make three different breakfast items (I was able to talk myself down from five!) and I knew I wanted to incorporate as many seasonal fruits as possible which led me to these peach ginger muffins.

I adore peaches.  They work amazingly well in both sweet and savory applications but I love them most when paired with ginger.  Something about the spiciness of the ginger plays off perfectly with the sweetness of a peach; it is one of those perfect combinations.  I was drawn to these peach ginger muffins because they incorporated crème fraiche, which gives an amazing tang to cakes and muffins, and I imagined that tang would pair perfectly with the fruit; that thought turned out to be correct.  These are the muffins of my dream, light and fluffy with a generous amount of fruit and spice.  They bake up beautifully golden brown and I found they stayed perfectly moist the next day, which is always a plus in my book. 

Peach Ginger Muffins

Recipie Adapted From Flour by Joanne Chang

Makes 18 Muffins (Says it makes 12 but I got a lot more!)

3 ¼ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

2 eggs plus 1 yolk
1 1/3 cups sugar

1 ¼ sticks butter, melted

1 cup milk (I only had skim so I used that but mixed in a splash of heavy cream!)

1 cup crème fraiche (I used a buttermilk crème friche combo which worked perfectly)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped

½ - 1 teaspoon ground ginger (depending on how much you like ginger)

3 large or 4 smaller peaches, diced (I removed the skin but I think you could leave it on)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin tin with liners or spray it with non stick spray.  In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and ginger.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and then add the sugar, butter, milk, crème fraiche, and vanilla. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and fold gently using a spatula.  Fold in the peaches and crystallized ginger.  Spoon into the muffin tin to fill the cups completely.  Bake for 30-40 minutes until the muffin tops are golden brown and let cool for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.