A muffin you haven’t tried

It’s presumptuous of me, I know, to tell you what you have or haven’t eaten. But you haven’t tried a muffin like this before. It has the crunchy sugared top that makes muffins so attractive in the first place (although, let’s face it, this is’t a muffin we’d call sexy). Made with whole wheat pastry and buckwheat flours, it has an honest, straightforward heritage, like a woman who only wears shoes she can run in. The temptation to call these them something else is strong—in an early morning introspective moment on the couch, my husband called them ButtBucks—but only a long, drawn-out title pays homage to their gentle mix of earthiness, sweetness, and tang. Made with brown sugar, vegetable oil, and buttermilk, these muffins are meant for breakfast, not dessert. Serve them warm or reheated, plain or with a smear of butter or honey.

Brown Sugar-Buttermilk Buckwheat Muffins (PDF)

TIME: 15 minutes active time
MAKES: 1 dozen muffins

Vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup lowfat buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup turbinado sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with vegetable oil spray (including the flat parts), and set aside.

Whisk the pastry flour, buckwheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar together in a large bowl. In another big bowl, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, and vegetable oil until smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until the flour is just incorporated. Divide the batter between the muffin cups, placing a heaping 1/4 cup batter in each one. (The muffins will not rise much.) Douse the muffins with the turbinado sugar.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned at the edges, but before the muffins begin to crack. Let cool 5 minutes in their pans, then cool completely on a wire rack.