Two weeks ago the New York Times Magazine published a riff on an old popover recipe, which they called Sugared Puffs. Dave very thoughtfully left the Magazine open to the recipe and did everything short of circling it with a red pen and highlighting the words “sugared puffs” and “popovers.”
So last weekend, of course, I did my duty and baked up some sugar puffs. I am sorry to tell you that not only are they outrageously delicious, but they are also stupidly easy. Throw everything into a blender, and then pour it into muffin tins. Bake, then brush with melted butter and dredge in cinnamon sugar (drool drool drool). They are all soft and light on the inside and crunchy and sugary on the outside.
I will also say that I didn’t use nearly enough butter to grease the muffin tin, and I had to rip them up a bit to get them out. I’ll use more next time. (But that explains why they look so crumpled and you can basically see my thumb indentation in the top of each one.) The recipe says it will make nine sugar puffs (I think “sugar puffs” is easier to say than “sugared puffs” so that’s what I’m calling them), but I got twelve (maybe mine were smaller than regulation but it seemed better to have three more). I also added about four times the amount of cinnamon, because we are lovers of the cinnamon here, and when I tasted it with the one teaspoon of cinnamon they call for (one teaspoon! a mere pittance!) it just tasted like sugar.
You can see the boys enjoyed them. Zuzu had one without a sugary coating, and she was very happy about it. Actually, now that I look at this photo, the boys don’t seem to be as ecstatic as I remember them being. Henry looks bored, and I don’t know why Eli is making the “Zoolander” face here, but I think it just means, “Sugar puff! Yum!”
So here it is, Sunday again, so clearly we all should go run and make some sugar puffs!
They look like twins!
Julie – they look like beignets meet popovers! If you like this, have you ever tried a French Breakfast muffin?? You will LOVE! They are more nutmeg-y than cinnamon-y but maybe could be made with cinnamon instead? I’ve never baked them, but get them every summer at a bakery in Chatam, have never seen them anywhere else. They are amazing. Google around for a recipe.
They do look like twins!
Maybe Henry would have been happier if he’d had his sugar puff with a side of bacon.
“Gawd, Eli is huge. That’s Henry in the striped shirt right?”
“No, he has the orange shirt.”
“Whoa, Eli is really big!”
We think they are twins actually – they used to call my family the cookie cutter family – this is beyond that! AND – I wrote that before looking up and seeing Anne’s comments.
Holy Frijoles! Any more to add to the brood? We’ll check back
after another spring cleaning!
I think it’s a cruel, cruel thing, that I’m at work right now. HOW CAN I NOT BE HOME BAKING THESE RIGHT NOW????? HOW?????
It’s funny, Eli and Henry are on some kind of bell curve as far as looking alike. It comes and goes. Throwing Zuzu into the mix confuses people. They spend a lot of time squinting and trying to see similarities between all.
Or maybe everyone has the same rapturous sugar puff face, and that’s all it is.