Concord Grape Muffins

Having tasted my first Concord grape in it's original form, I was so excited to make something with them. Although a web search for recipes turned out lackluster, I did find a muffin recipe from the In Jennie's Kitchen blog that was unfussy and simple enough.

I decided to prep the Concord grapes and dry ingredients the night before. Halving and deseeding 2 cups of grapes took me more than 15 minutes since I've never worked with Concords before. It's a tedious process. To use the grapes whole, you have to remove the seeds but I was a little bummed that some of their yummy juice gets lost in the process. The seeds are set in the flesh of the grape and I couldn't just flick them out with the tip of a paring knife. I found that tracing around the seeds with the knife tip removed the seeds while keeping the flesh somewhat intact. A sharp paring knife helps with cutting out the seed. And because the skins slip off easily, I had quite a few that separated from the flesh while trying to deseed them. I ended up eating those but had to deseed more grapes to replace them. In the future, I wouldn't worry about the skins coming off since they are going into a muffin batter.

One cup halved & deseeded, one to go

This morning, I combined the dry ingredients that I measured last night and mixed in the butter using my fingers. (I don't have a pastry cutter/blender.) I incorporated the whole milk using a wooden spoon as specified in the recipe. The batter at this point was thick.

 

The recipe specifically called for using a wooden spoon to mix in the milk, but I'm not really sure why it had to be a wooden spoon. After the milk, you fold in the Concord grapes. Because the skins come off easily and I didn't want to smash the grapes, I didn't find a wooden spoon as the best option. So I used a silicone spatula to fold in the grapes. And that left another utensil to clean up, so I'd pass on the wooden spoon altogether and just use a spatula.

I used an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute the batter into my silicone baking cups as best as possible. I sprinkled the tops with turbinado/raw sugar and would use more next time because I want the tops to have more crunch.

It took a little more time than the recipe states for my muffins to bake until a toothpick came out clean, about 22 minutes total.

The texture of the muffin was more on the gluey side as I ate the muffins and I would have liked it to be more crumbly. But the amount of Concord grapes in this recipe ensures you get that grape flavor in every bite. These are lightly sweet, which I like, but a little more sugar in the batter would be okay if you prefer more sweetness. Be prepared for your mouth and fingers to turn purple! 

Overall, I like baking with whole Concord grapes but may try a cake or different muffin batter recipe next time. 

My Rating (out of 5): 3.5