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!

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.

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
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.

Related Recipes:

• Peach Cobbler
• Peach and Banana Bran Muffins
• Whole Wheat Banana Oat Muffins
• Cherry Banana Muffins with White Chocolate Chips
• Whole Grain Sour Cream Apple Muffins

Around the Web:

• Stir-Fried Beef and Nectarines from Steamy Kitchen
• Nectarine Turnovers from Baking Bites
• Nectarine Golden Cake from Sassy Radish
• Rustic Peach and Nectarine Crostata from Herbivoracious
• Tomato-Nectarine Chutney from The Perfect Pantry