Chocochip Cherry 'n Coke Muffins

Does it ever happen to you that you see a recipe, pin it and then cannot get it out of your head until you have tried it. It happens to me all the time... specially when I see something as awesome as a hand-written muffin recipe from a different era .. Something with ICE_CREAM and a promise of goodness in it. Something like these muffins from Four Mars.. One Venus that scream and beg to be baked right away... So I tweaked Jen's grandmother's Quick Blueberry muffin recipe a bit to make these Chocochip Cherry n' Coke muffins for breakfast on Sunday...

I had read about coke doing wonders to the texture of cakes before and on Sunday experienced it first hand. Even with their share of whole wheat flour, these muffins turned out so soft and fluffy. They were wonderful. Little boy enjoyed them too and declared that he likes cherry muffins.

The texture became a little dense the next day... but even then they tasted good. In fact I thought like most whole wheat cakes, they tasted better the following day. I had glazed half of the batch with a coke-cocoa glaze and my husband liked the glazed ones, little boy and  and I however preferred ours unglazed ones. We were happy with the chocolate-cherry combo and did not care much for the added sugar.....

Whole-Cherry Clafoutis # French Fridays with Dorie

This week we baked Whole-Cherry Clafoutis for French Fridays with Dorie.

Clafoutis is a rustic looking French country cake from the Limousin region. Its texture however makes it taste more like pudding than a cake. It was the first time I tasted this and the first bite instantly reminded me of my mothers gorgeous pudding with raisins and cashews. I believe her recipe is very similar to Dorie's, but since fresh cherries were and still are a novelty in the small town  where i grew, she always uses raisins instead and her pudding tastes as good. 

Though Dorie files this recipe under dessert, we enjoyed it more for breakfast. It is very fairly easy to make and not overly sweet even with the extra dusting of sugar. So this recipe makes a perfect weekend breakfast. Since we are a family of two and a quarterI whipped up the clafoutis with two-thirds of the ingredients and baked it in a loaf pan. It was just right to have for dessert on day one and for breakfast on the following two days. Though I served it with whipped cream, I felt that an extra helping of sugar was required to make it a dessert. The recipe was not sweet enough for us. 

Apparently the pudding tastes best when made with stemmed and un-pitted sweet cherries and served while it is still a little warm. But since I had sent my husband to get the cherries and forgot to specify the details, i ended up baking my pudding with frozen pitted cherries. and frankly speaking we did not mind the taste. Also my husband did not seem have any problem with having the pudding straight from the refrigerator. So I guess, he really liked it in spite of all its imperfections.

Being a member of french fridays with Dorie, i cannot publish the original recipe in the blog. You can however find this particular one here. For many more delicious recipes such as this one order your copies of Around the French Table from Amazon or from The Book Depository and join us as we cook our way through the book.