Cinnamon Raisin Pull Apart Muffins

[kirra]

Cinnamon Raisin Pull Apart Muffins

Ingredients:

3 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
handful of golden raisins (optional)
more flour, granulated sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Preparation:

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.

Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it —

one-bowl recipe!-dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size. I placed my bowl of wrapped dough in the fridge overnight instead of leaving it out for two hours.

Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes. If you’ve left your dough in the fridge overnight like I did, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, place the covered bowl of dough near the oven, or on a stovetop burner that doesn’t get too hot, bringing the dough to room temperature faster. After it’s been out of the fridge for about 30 minutes, dump it onto a floured counter, press the air out and knead the dough into a smooth, happy ball. Return to the down to warm up a bit more, and rise just a bit more, about 30 minutes more. Your dough should be doubled in size from the previous night.

Grease a muffin pan with vegetable shortening and dust it with flour. Set aside. On a well floured work surface, dump out the dough. Press out with your hands until your dough is about 3/4-inch thick. The shape doesn’t matter so much. Begin to cut the dough into small chunks. Mine were just smaller that one inch chunks. If the dough sticks to your knife, just flour you knife a bit. Once cut into chunks, sprinkle the pieces with a bit of flour, a handful of granulated sugar and a generous dusting of ground cinnamon. Toss on the counter top.

In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, flour, cornstarch, raisins and cinnamon until well combined. I brought my mixture together with my hands.

Fill the muffin tin to the halfway point with dough chunks, softly packing them in. Top with about a tablespoon of the sugar mixture, then top with more dough chunks, packing lightly. Finish with more sugar mixture. That’s four layers for each muffin.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 12-15 minutes, keeping an eye on them after 12 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edges of each muffin then gently scoop out of the muffin tin. Enjoy! Makes about 12 muffins.