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Nectarine Muffins

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Nectarine Muffins

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending The Organic Stone Fruit Jubilee, a great event celebrating 60 varieties of peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, and pluots from about a dozen local certified organic farms.

After enjoying some music and eating delicious pulled-pork sandwiches topped with grilled peaches, we wandered from table to table chatting with farmers and sampling more varieties of stone fruits than I ever knew existed!

Stone Fruit Tasting

Needless to say, I walked away from the jubilee with bulging bags of peaches, nectarines, and apricots.  The peaches won’t be fully ripened for another day or two, but the nectarines were perfect Sunday morning.  I couldn’t resist eating slice after slice of the delicious fruit while cutting it up for the muffins.

I had never made nectarine muffins before, but I knew I wanted a recipe that included buttermilk.  I turned to my favorite buttermilk muffin recipe in the book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone as a starting point and was happy to see instructions for adapting the basic recipe to make fresh fruit muffins.  Although nectarines weren’t on the list of recommended fruits, I knew they would work well here.  I also decided to add a bit of ground cinnamon and ginger as I really enjoy those flavors with peaches and nectarines.

Cookbook

The muffins were amazing – sweet, tart, and tender.  They reminded me of a nectarine cobbler, which says a lot since cobbler is one of my favorite desserts.  I was really happy to be able to share them with both my dad and my grandpa on Father’s Day.  It’s nice to be home.

Nectarine Muffins on Rack

Nectarine Muffins
Adapted from Basic Buttermilk Muffin recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup diced fresh nectarine

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt until well combined.  In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, brown sugar, melted butter, and vanilla extract.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with a large spoon until just combined (make sure to scrape all the flour up off the bottom of the bowl).  Gently fold in the diced nectarines.

Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups (a mechanical ice cream scoop works great for this) – they will be almost completely full.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

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  4. 12th Man says

    I love nectarines and plums, but other than just eating them, I've never been too good and coming up with alternative uses for them. This helps a lot!! Cheers.
    Reply

  5. DessertForTwo says

    Your photo is gorgeous! And thanks for sharing an adaptation from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. That cookbook is the second most used book in my house; second only to the Bible! :)
    Reply

  6. my little expat kitchen says

    I just tasted my first nectarines of the season a couple of days ago and I was blown away by their amazing taste. I was thinking that there must be something I can do with them. This is a great option. Love the look of your muffins. Great finding your blog! Magda
    Reply

  7. Joanne says

    I love using Bittman as a jumping off point for recipes like this. He is so adaptable. These muffins sound fantastic, and filled with the perfect spices to complement the nectarines!
    Reply

  8. Valérie says

    My mom always buys nectarines in the summer. I used to prefer its fuzzier, sweeter cousing, the peach, but now I really appreciate its distinctive taste. I've made it into pies, but muffins sound good!
    Reply

  9. Kathy says

    If you like a sweet, tender, tangy muffin you will love these. so good !!! thank you for sharing, Nicole.
    Reply

  10. Dev, LA Om Chef says

    Yum, you had me at nectarine cobbler! I am a huge cobbler fan, and nectarine cobbler in the form of a neat and tidy muffin sounds incredible. One of the interesting things about nectarines is their flavor becomes ultra concentrated with time. Leave a few out of the refrigeratory until they shrink a bit, and the skin begins to shrivel, just a few days, but not to the point of being mushy, you will be amazed at the dense flavor... cheers!
    Reply

  14. Georgia Pellegrini says

    I'm glad you've found some good nectarines... I've been finding a lot of mealy ones. I catered an event over the weekend though and grilled some peaches that were borderline and it made them amazing... plus the whole place smelled like peach pie : ) I'll give these a try soon.
    Reply

  15. Kelli says

    I made these today with the organic nectarines from my CSA box and they were fantastic! I shared with my neighbors and they loved them as well. Thank you so much for the recipe!
    Reply

  18. Edina says

    I picked up some recipe cards at my local supermarket yesterday and one was for nectarine buns! Shame they put the recipe out after the checkout else I'd have picked some up!
    Reply

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