Why bake bread or soda bread for dinner, when you can have these buttermilk muffins instead? They’re sweet, buttery, fluffy, and studded with just the right amount of plump whiskey-soaked raisins. Why settle for dry-as-dust raisins in your muffins, when you can have moist, plump, juicy raisins that have been soaked in whiskey as an alternative?
We have a thief in our house, or rather we have a thief in our garage since that’s where we keep most of our liquor. It seems like every St. Patrick’s Day, I buy a new bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey. And each year after, when I go to find that same bottle of whiskey, it has mysteriously vanished. Poof. Nowhere in sight. Missing. Gone. It drives me mad. I know, without a doubt, that this thief isn’t drinking the Jameson Irish Whiskey because it’s their favorite, especially since there are so many other premium whiskeys to choose from in the garage. Instead, this thief is just seeing that full bottle of whiskey and saying to themselves, “Well looky there, it’s a bottle of Jameson. I wonder where that came from. Oh well, I guess it must be here for me to drink.” Well, you know what? If that thief insists on drinking all of my baking whiskey, I’m just gonna use that same thief’s premium whiskey to bake some muffins. So, yeah, these muffins may or may not be $20 muffins. But you know what? I’m not complaining. They were worth every single whiskey-soaked cent.
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/4 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1 Cup Buttermilk
- 1/2 Cup Irish Butter, Melted (Additional for After Baking)
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Teaspoons Vanilla
- 1 Cup Raisins
- Whiskey
Directions:
- Place the raisins in a small bowl. Pour enough whiskey into the bowl to just cover the raisins. Allow the raisins to soak for at least 4 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Drain the raisins well; fold them into the muffin batter.
- Place 12 paper liners in a muffin tin. Use an ice cream scoop to divide the muffin batter between the 12 paper-lined muffin cups.
- Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- When you remove the muffins from the oven, immediately brush the tops of them with the additional melted butter.
Suggestions:
- I used Irish Butter for this recipe. If you use normal butter, use unsalted butter and increase the kosher salt to 1/2 teaspoon.
- Make sure to soak the raisins in whiskey for at least 4 hours. The whiskey helps to plump the raisins up and keep them moist within the muffins. When you drain the raisins, you can save the remaining whiskey to drink or use in another recipe.
- You can use either traditional raisins or golden raisins in this recipe. I prefer golden raisins.
- Usually, when baking muffins, it is best to keep a few teaspoons aside of the ingredient that you are folding into the muffins to garnish the muffins before baking. Do not do this for this particular muffin recipe. If you garnish the muffins with raisins they will burn during baking. After you fill the paper-lined muffin tin, use your finger or a spoon handle to press any exposed raisins down into the muffin batter to prevent them from burning. (P.S. I know that the pictures for this recipe totally contradict this suggestion. However, if you look closely, you will see that the golden raisins that I used to garnish these muffins before baking did in fact burn a bit.
Improvements:
- Replace the raisins in this recipe with finely chopped dried apricots, dried cherries, or dried sweetened cranberries.
- Fold 1/2 cup of slivered almonds into the muffin batter.
- Are you a huge fan of muffins for dinner? Check out these Spanish Olive Oil Muffins (Magdalenas) or these Chobani Simply 100 Blueberry Dinner Muffins.
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/4 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1 Cup Buttermilk
- 1/2 Cup Irish Butter, Melted (Additional for After Baking)
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Teaspoons Vanilla
- 1 Cup Raisins
- Whiskey
Directions:
- Place the raisins in a small bowl. Pour enough whiskey into the bowl to just cover the raisins. Allow the raisins to soak for at least 4 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Drain the raisins well; fold them into the muffin batter.
- Place 12 paper liners in a muffin tin. Use an ice cream scoop to divide the muffin batter between the 12 paper-lined muffin cups.
- Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- When you remove the muffins from the oven, immediately brush the tops of them with the addtional melted butter.
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