My hoard of fresh peaches has slowly dwindled to 5. I admit I ate most of them as nature intended. I had big plans for peach ice cream, peach pie, peach compote, etc. Instead, this recipe caught my eye on the Food Network web site. It reads very well and I have high hopes that it will turn out to be delicious. With it, I bid a fond farewell to the last of the summer peaches. Sigh.

Fresh Peach Muffins with a Pecan Crumb Topping
From Emeril Lagasse

• 2 cups finely chopped fresh or frozen peaches
• 1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 4 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup ground pecans
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons cold butter
  

Directions:

• Place the peaches in a bowl and cover with 1/2 cup of the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Allow the peaches to sit for 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• Lightly Grease 24 (2 3/4-inch by 1 3/8-inch) muffin cups.
• Using an electric mixer, fitted with a paddle, cream the butter and remaining 3/4 cup of sugar until smooth and pale in color, about 3 minutes.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• In a medium bowl, combine 3 1/2 cups of the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Remove the bowl from the mixer and alternately fold in the milk and flour mixture, being careful not to over mix.
• Fold in the peaches.
• Spoon 1/4 cup of the filling into each prepared muffin cup.
• In a small bowl, combine the remaining flour, brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon. Mix well.
• Add the butter. Using your hands, mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumb like mixture.
• Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the crumb mixture over each muffin cup.
• Place in the oven and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Serve warm with butter.

About this recipe: get those peaches cut up and marinate them in the sugar as soon as you can since you have to let them sit for an hour. Fortunately for me, I decided to season a skillet tonight that I've had since Christmas which sat unused and it takes exactly 1 hour in the oven to do that. (I season in preparation of making a sweet skillet corn bread in the coming days).

This recipe is interesting in that you only use the mixer to cream the butter and sugar and add the eggs. Then, you remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the flour mixture alternately with the milk using a rubber spatula. This is very fine treatment indeed! It took a bit of arm strength to get everything incorporated. I added about 3/4 of a cup of flour alternately with about 1/4 cup of the milk. It took me more than a few repetitions to get it all in. After that, I folded in my peaches which I finely diced since I wasn't sure what "finely chopped" peaches meant exactly. There was about a 1/3 of a cup of liquid at the bottom of the peaches after having macerated them in sugar for an hour. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use this so I left it out. I suggest, however, that you do use the liquid since it will give some more peach flavor and sweetness to the muffin batter.

I filled paper lined muffin cups almost to the top with the peach batter. I got a total of 20 muffins from the batch I made. I sprinkled the pecan crumble topping on each muffin and then pressed on it with my hand just a little--as you can see by the photo, the topping doesn't stick very well.

All I can say about how these muffins turned out is: man were they good! This is the second recipe from Emeril that has turned out fabulously and I won't hesitate in the future to try more of his recipes. The topping is sweet and crunchy and mingles nicely with the softness of the muffin beneath. The muffin base itself is on the plain side, which I actually enjoyed very much since it really puts the small chunks of fresh peach in the spotlight. I had a few comments from others, however, who said that while they really liked the topping they thought the muffin itself it needed something more. In spite of this, I highly recommend this recipe since it's so good and a little less ordinary than your ho-hum blueberry muffin. You can even bring a bit of summer to the late fall and winter by using frozen peaches which I'm sure would fare well in this recipe. I will definitely add this to my recipe box.