So, YEH. This is a thing: home made muffins with cooked breakfast sausage added that really taste kinda like pancakes and sausage. The original recipe, provided by the very nice folk at centercutcook.com, called for serving these tasty little muffins warm with maple syrup drizzled over teh top.
Not too, too bad, but made for kinda messy eating, so (along with adding just a bit of spice), I decided to use whipped maple syrup butter.
Much more better!
INGREDIENTS
Muffins:
•1/2 pound breakfast sausage
•1 tbsp Sherry Peppers Sauce (or 1 tsp or so of your favorite hot sauce)
•1-1/2 cup milk
•4 tbsp white vinegar
•2 cups flour
•4 tbsp sugar
•2 tsp baking powder
•1 tsp baking soda
•1 tsp salt
•2 eggs
•4 tbsp butter, melted
•1 tsp vanilla
Maple Butter:
•1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
•1/4 cup maple syrup (grade B)
•1/4 tsp black pepper
•1/8 tsp salt
First, make the maple syrup butter by adding all the ingredients to a mixing bowl and beating with a mixer until nicely blended.
Not certain about the salt and black pepper? Leave ’em out when you mix the maple syrup and butter, then give it a taste. Now, stir in the pepper and salt and taste again.
See? The pepper and salt bring out the richness of the maple and the butter.
Note: I now use exclusively (if I have any choice) Kerrygold Irish Butter. I came across it in a cooking class last year and was amazed that I could smell the difference just from stirring melting butter before making a roux. And I had been using some pretty darned nice local butter from just up the road in Wisconsin, so we’re not talking about comparing premium to bargain brands here.
You do what you like, but I like Kerrygold.
Stash the whipped butter in a crock and set aside while you put the muffins together.
Heat your oven to 400º and place paper liners or apply cooking spray to two muffin tins – I used one large (6 muffin) and one medium (12 muffin) tin for this amount of batter.
Cook the breakfast sausage with the Sherry Peppers Sauce (or hot sauce) in a skillet until cooked through, breaking the sausage into small bits while cooking.
Drain well.
Stir the milk into the vinegar in a bowl and let it sit for five or ten minutes.
Note: this is basically making buttermilk.
Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a mixing bowl – I used my stand mixer with the whisk attachment, worked a treat.
Add the eggs, the milk blend, melted butter, and vanilla, switch to the paddle attachment, and mix to combine.
Stir in the cooked, drained sausage until well blended, then fill the muffin tins about 2/3 of the way up.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (depending on the size of your muffin tins), then remove from the oven and serve warm with the maple syrup butter.
Rich thinks they taste like a McGriddle; Wes’ thinks they taste like MORE, PLEASE, and the girls…
well, the girls were not impressed, but there was a huge honkin’ bowl of fresh strawberries on the table, and for them, all else was immaterial.
I think they made for a very nice little muffin that works as well as a sit down breakfast as it would (with the maple syrup butter) an on-the-go one.