Amarena Cherry Lemon Muffins #MuffinMonday

Made with delicious Amarena wild cherries and their syrup, these fluffy cherry lemon muffins are perfect for snack or teatime. 

I'm guessing that most of you aren't cherry snobs because nor was I until just a few short weeks ago! A maraschino cherry was a maraschino cherry. Red, bright and sweet. 

But then I learned about Luxardo cherries and had to buy some. Guys, they are a world apart from the jarred cherries we can buy in a grocery store with a price tag to match. Enter the Amarena cherries at Costco! They are also more expensive than grocery store maraschinos but they come in a very large jar making them much cheaper than Luxardos. 

And, to make cherry buying decisions even easier, when I did just a little research, their reviews online are better too. We did a taste test and the Amarenas slightly outdid the Luxardos. 

Amarena Cherry Lemon Muffins

If you don't have fancy cherries though, by all means use the grocery store maraschinos. Lemon and cherries are a great combination. This recipe makes about 16 regular muffins.

Ingredients

2 cups or 250g flour

1/3 cup or 66g sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 small lemon (for zest and 4 teaspoons juice)

2 eggs

1/2 cup or 120ml milk

1/3 cup or 75ml canola or other light oil

1/4 cup Amarena cherry syrup, plus extra to brush on, if desired

5 2/3 oz or 142g Amarena cherries (about 3/4 cup once halved)

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Butter or grease your muffin pans or line them with paper liners.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl.

Grate in the lemon zest and mix.

Juice your lemon. Halve your cherries and set 16 pieces aside for topping the muffins.

Put the bigger pile of cut cherries in the flour mixture and toss well to cover.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, cherry syrup and lemon syrup.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and fold until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups in pan.  Top with reserved cherry halves.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Allow them to cool for a few minutes then remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

Brush on a little extra cherry syrup, if desired. 

Enjoy!

It's the last Monday of the month so that means it's time for Muffin Monday! Many thanks to Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories who stepped up and created this link list. Check out all the great muffin recipes we have for you today! 

• Amarena Cherry Lemon Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Cranberry Eggnog Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Honey Corn Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Orange and Pear Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Orange Poppy Seed Mini Muffins from A Messy Kitchen
• Sourdough Cranberry Banana Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Amarena Cherry Lemon Muffins!

 .

Cherry Brownie Bundtlets #BundtBakers

These chewy cherry brownie bundtlets are as delicious as they are pretty, with a rich brown crumb, ribbons of cherry jam inside and little dollops of cherry jam on top. Best of all, they are super easy to make.

A few months ago I shared a fabulous recipe for marmalade glazed baked chicken from my friend Jamie Schler’s beautiful book, Orange Appeal* and I mentioned a few of her other recipes I had tried. One of those was chocolate orange marmalade brownies. Baked in a small pan, they are sticky and chocolatey with a welcome bite of bitter orange.

It occurred to me that Jamie’s recipe is wonderful in another way. It is readily adaptable to whatever other flavors of jam or marmalade you might have on hand, assuming they work well with chocolate, of course. I decided to put that theory to the test for this month’s Bundt Bakers theme of cherries.

Since cherry jam is sweeter than orange marmalade, I adjusted the amount of sugar necessary accordingly. And because I am lazy, I also threw it all together in the mixing bowl instead of creaming the butter and sugar, etc.

Cherry Brownie Bundlets

Cherries and chocolate are a classic combination. When you bring these treats to the table, I promise they’ll get an Oooooh! and a collective swoon from all the chocolate and cherry lovers. This recipe is adapted from the chocolate orange brownies in Orange Appeal by Jamie Schler.

Ingredients
For the bundtlets:
2 ounces (60g) dark chocolate
1 ounce (30g) cherry flavored 70% dark chocolate (Lindt Excellence Cherry Intense)
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon or 105g all-purpose flour
3/4 cup or 150g light brown sugar
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the pan
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
3 heaping tablespoons good quality cherry jam

For topping:
6 teaspoons cherry jam

N.B. Allergy alert: The Lindt Cherry Intense chocolate bar has little nibs of almond. I was not aware when I bought it since almond is not mentioned in the name, but it is there in the description and ingredients list.

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 12-cup bundtlet pan by greasing it liberally with melted butter. I use a pastry brush for this job.

Put your chocolates, broken into pieces, into a microwaveable bowl and melt them with a few short zaps of 10-15 seconds at a time, stirring in between as they start to melt. Set the melted chocolate aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or another mixing bowl if you are using electric beaters, add all of the other ingredients except the cherry jam. Beat on medium for 1-2 minutes, scraping the bowl down with a rubber spatula halfway through.

Pour in the melted chocolate and beat briefly until combined, scraping the bowl down in between.

Put the cherry jam in the batter in big dollops. Use your spatula to fold it in so that there are still big bits of jam visible.

Use a spoon or scoop to divide the batter into the prepared bundtlet pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the cherry brownie bundtlets have risen nicely and are a little darker brown around the edges.

Remove them from the oven and leave to cool for just a couple of minutes before turning them out of the pan. If the baked jam is sticking to your pan, use a small spoon to loosen the bundtlets before turning them out.

Use the bottom of a chopstick or a similar tool to push the middle of the bundtlets down to make a hole.

Once the bundtlets are cool, spoon about 1/2 a teaspoon of cherry jam into the center of each.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month’s host Sneha of Sneha’s Recipe for the delightful theme. Check out all the other cherrylicious Bundts we have for you today.

• Apple, Poppyseed and Cherry Bundt Cake from Katinspajz
• Banana Split Bundt Cake from Patty's Cake
• Bundt Cake Chocolate and Cherries from Merce`s Cake
• Cherry Brownie Bundtlets from Food Lust People Love
• Cherry-Port Swirled Bundt Cake with Almond Streusel from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Cherries Zebra Bundt Cake from PatyCo.Candy bar
• Chocolate Cherry Bundtlets from Sweet Sensations
• Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake from The Queen of Scones
• Glazed Cherry Coconut Cake from Sneha's Recipe
• Lemon Cherry Babka from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Lemon Maraschino Buttermilk Bundt Cake from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Mary Berry Cherry Cake from Palatable Pastime
• Shirley Temple Bundt Cake from Cookaholic Wife
• White Chocolate Bundt Cake with Black Cherry Jam from I Love Bundt Cakes

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.


*Amazon affiliate link: If you buy the book Orange Appeal after following this link, I earn a few pennies at no extra cost to you. Just go read the reviews then decide. It's a wonderful book.

Pin it!

 .