Guilty Pleasures: Lime Cranberry Muffins

We all have guilty pleasures.  When it comes to food, for me it’s always the baked goods.  Croissants, pastries, breads, muffins – you name it.  Being a girl in her 30s, this is not a good guilty pleasure to have, as you can imagine 🙂  Bakeries are my greatest weakness – the smell of freshly baked bread or croissants – is there anything better in the world?  In  Waterloo, there aren’t many bakeries around (which is maybe a blessing in disguise for my waistline), so the closest I can get to the bakeries back home are cafes and the farmer’s market. 

This post’s guilty pleasure came unexpectedly from a breakfast visit to the local cafe The Seven Shores.  The Seven Shores promotes the slow food movement and organic local food.  It was founded in 2004 by by local entrepreneurs and eventually evolved to an urban cafe, food market and merchandiser of arts and crafts from artisans around the world.  It was previously located in a small space on Regina and Dupont.  Last December it moved to their new explanded location (previously Generation X).  I have visited the previous location previously and thought the cafe to be a gem: unpretentious atmosphere, friendly staff and amazing pastries. 

One easy Saturday morning D and I decided to check out the new location.  The first thing that struck me was the amazing countertop they had installed – . thin planks of dark and light wood interchanging to make a sort of striped surface!  The new location is about 3 times the old location with a community room and a small marketplace.  I must say I thought that their old location had a better selection of local produce than what was there now, and I didn’t see any arts and crafts from artisans around the world.  However, this could be due to their recent expansion and not having everything ready yet.  Regardless, we ordered some simple breakfast with eggs, but the real gems were the pastries.  Lime cranberry muffin for D and a strawberry white chocolate scone for me.  Cappucino that I ordered was done perfectly and I was thoroughly impressed by the friendly service.  I had a feeling I was sitting at a cafe somewhere in Europe.

Lime cranberry muffin – the inspiration for this post – was one of the nicest muffins I have tested in a while – it was fresh, citrusy and light tasting.  The cranberries gave it a slight tartness which was a good complement to the sweetness.  My favourite part was the crystalized pieces of sugar that glistened at the top – super pretty.

So I decided that I would try to re-create these muffins in my own kitchen.  I found an interesting recipe at My Baking Addiction but it had bluberries instead of cranberries.  I decided to just substitute for cranberries and follow the rest of the recipe.  I wanted the muffins to be super limy so I picked two big limes to zest.  The batter was a lovely light green colour – perfect for spring!  I also put in 50% more cranberries (plus a few on top once in the liners) than what the recipe said.  I bought muffins with cranberries before and many times only found one or two cranberries inside – which is very dissapointing.  So, I decided my muffins would have plenty of cranberries.

The result? Beautiful limey cranberry deliciousness!

What are your guilty pleasures?  What food can you not live without?  I’d love to hear from you!

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recipe

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Lime Cranberry Muffins

• 1 cup sugar

• zest of two limes

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 eggs

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup sour cream

• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

• coarse sugar, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper muffin liners.

2. In a small bowl, combine sugar and lime zest. Mix with clean fingertips until sugar is moistened and fragrant. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

4. In large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thoroughly incorporated.  Continue beating while slowly pouring in the oil. Add in vanilla.

5. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups and if desired, top with a sprinkling of coarse sugar.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into middle of muffin comes out dry