Apricot Muffins

The star in this recipe is dried apricots. If you decide to make these muffins be sure to buy plenty of apricots because I guarantee your family will ask for them again.

The ingredients in this recipe are very basic for me except for the apricots and the buttermilk. You may always keep buttermilk handy, but I never have. Fairly often, I would pull out a recipe and realize that I didn’t have buttermilk, then I’d have to make a trip to buy some before I could carry on with my cooking.
Until . . .

. . . I read the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook. If you don’t have buttermilk and you need a cup of it for a recipe, just use a scant cup of milk and mix it with a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar. Somehow it magically becomes buttermilk before your very eyes! This is the coolest! For the recipe today I purposely didn’t buy buttermilk, just so I could make my own. This is something you really need to try, if you haven’t.

A scant cup of milk + 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar = 1 cup buttermilk

I’m usually not in favor of substitutions in recipes. I hardly ever would substitute anything in my cooking until my eyes were opened to the buttermilk substitute by the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. Live and learn. She’s my hero. I went all the way to Dallas when she was there to get her to sign my copies of The Pioneer Woman Cooks and her novel Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.

Apricot Muffins 

1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup boiling water
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a 12 cup muffin pan by spraying with non stick cooking spray.

Now let’s mix up the muffins.

Start with a bag of dried apricots.

Chop the apricots.

We need enough chopped apricots to make 1 cup.

Place the chopped apricots in a small bowl. Pour 1 cup boiling water over the apricots. Let stand for 5 minutes.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, oil, buttermilk, and egg.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until just blended. It is okay for the batter to have some lumps.

Drain the water from the apricots, and mix them into the batter.

Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool in the pan over a wire rack.

Have a muffin! (I had two!)