Baked Sunday Mornings: Peanut Butter and Jelly Crumb Morning Muffins

In honor of Eleanor Roosevelt's birthday, the gentlemen bakers present a recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly Crumb Morning Muffins. The name pretty much says its all: it's a peanut butter muffin enclosing a dollop of jelly, topped with peanut crumbs.

This recipe doesn't require a mixer. To make the muffin batter, you combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, dark brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt) in one bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients (milk, sour cream, creamy peanut butter, oil, an egg, and vanilla) in another bowl, and fold the wet into the dry. You drop some batter into a muffin cup, add a teaspoon of jelly (I used grape), cover the jelly with more muffin batter, and then press on some peanut butter crumbs (a mixture of chopped salted peanuts, flour, dark brown sugar, salt, and melted butter), and bake.
I used glassine cupcake liners in my muffin tins and I was able to release them from the pan without any problem. (I tested this recipe before Baked Occasions was published without using liners and accidentally ripped the flattish tops off of some of the muffins when trying to release them from the pan; liners eliminate this problem.)

My reaction to the muffins -- both when I tested them before, and now that I've made then again -- is: meh. The muffin is moist but not all that flavorful; the jelly is nice but you need a lot more of it to get the true flavor of a PB&J; the cinnamon just seems out of place. I think the best part of the muffin is the peanut butter crumb on top. Maybe using chunky peanut butter or throwing some chopped nuts into the batter would have helped boost the flavor of the actual muffin as well.

To address the very lopsided ratio of peanut butter to jelly you could easily just add more jelly, especially if you use paper liners, because then you don't have to worry about the jelly seeping out and sticking to the pan. But also it seems to me that this would be a great place for some King Arthur Flour jammy bits (if you don't mind the steep price -- $18 a pound!).  But as written, I won't be making this recipe again.

Recipe: "Peanut Butter and Jelly Crumb Morning Muffins" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.

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Comments

Sorry to hear you didn't care for these! I used liners as well-- just seemed easier and less messy. I did like the muffins, but I have to agree about the crumb topping being the best part-- soooo good! I'll have to check out the Jammy Bits...
I couldn't stop laughing at your "meh"! and I'm sorry you didn't like them-they were a hit with us.

Hannah, Spots on Pots
Anonymous said…
This is exactly how I feel about these muffins. It looks like you have had some successful PB&J baking projects in the past that I need to try.