Yesterday while I was dismantling and cleaning the vacuum cleaner, ( you thought I had a glamorous life? HA!) I was thinking of what I could bake that was different but delicious to serve with hearty winter soups and stews. My poor, overly taxed brain kept spinning in circles and coming back to onions. But raw onions in a baked product just didn’t set well with me. And then, like an epiphany it came to me! Caramelized onions! And not in a biscuit, but baked into muffins. With Herbs! Sweet, sweet unctuous, tender onions that started out raw and strong and cooked forever until they melt into a golden brown buttery mass.
Caramelized Onions
Oh Yum! Then tucked into a light muffin mix scented with rubbed Sage and Thyme. I thought “Oh boy, if these turn out good, I’ll even pat myself on the back!” Guess what? Sometimes I amaze myself. These are unbelievably scrumptdiddlyishish! I had 2 of them for dinner last night and had to stop myself from eating more. Hot from the oven and slathered with butter, I was in muffin heaven! Dan will be home from Paris tonight and I can’t wait to hear his opinion. I’m betting he gives them 2 thumbs up.
Savory and sweet Caramelized Onion and Herb Muffins
Caramelized onions are easy to make, but definitely time consuming. Set aside a good hour to cook them down and don’t try to hurry the process or you’ll risk ending up with a burnt mess. ( Don’t ask me how I know that.) Once the onions are ready, it only takes minutes to put the muffins together and then 20 minutes to bake.
So….let’s go build some Muffins!
Caramelized Onion and Herb Muffins
Ingredients
Caramelized Onions
- 2 Large Cooking Onions about 3 cups sliced
- 1 TBSP olive oil maybe a little more as the onions cook
- 1 TBSP Butter
- 1/4 Tsp Salt
Muffin Mix
- 1-3/4 Cup AP flour
- 1/4 Cup sugar scant 1/4 cup
- 3 Tsp Baking Powder
- 3/4 Tsp Salt
- 1 Tsp rubbed Sage
- 1/2 Tsp Dried Thyme
- 1 Large Egg beaten
- 3/4 Cup Milk
- 1/3 Cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 Cup Caramelized Onions chopped
Instructions
Caramelized Onions
- Peel and thinly slice the Onions.
- Melt Butter and Olive Oil together in a 10 inch skillet. Add the sliced onions and turn the heat down to medium low. Check on them and stir every 5 minutes or so.
- After 30 minutes, sprinkle with salt, stir and lower the heat to low. Keep cooking. This is what mine looked like after 30 minutes. Now, watch carefully because once they start to brown, they can burn easily.
- Keep cooking and stir every few minutes until delightfully golden brown. You may need to add a Teaspoon of oil to keep them from sticking to the pan.That whole pan of onions will be condensed into about 1/2 Cup! This is what they should look like when finished. Takes about an hour.
- Set the onions aside to cool. If they seem really oily, drain them on paper towels. When cool, chop them up. That's it. Now on to the muffins!
Muffin Mix
- Gather all your ingredients. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin / cupcake pan with paper liners or grease well.
- In a medium size bowl, combine the flour, sugar,baking powder and salt. Stir in the Sage and Thyme.
- Measure the oil.
- Break the egg into the measuring cup with the oil.
- Whisk the oil and egg together until well combined. I have been doing it this way for as long as I can remember.
- Make a "well" in the flour mixture and pour in the egg, oil mix. Then pour in the 3/4 Cup of milk. With a rubber spatula, gently mix just until combined. A few lumps are fine!
- Gently stir in the chopped Caramelized Onions until evenly distributed.
- Like this.
- Spoon into a muffin pan lined with cup cake liners or grease the pan well. Fill each cup about 2/3 full.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until the tops are nicely brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Oh my Gosh! The aroma while cooking is wunderbar!
- Serve nice and warm with plenty of butter. Enjoy!
Karen,
These looks luscious. I have to make these. These would be great at Thanksgiving with the turkey or even with a roasted chicken or for me being a vegetarian just by themselves.
Hugs
Shar
Hi Sharon,
They truly were delicious! Hope they work well for you.
Hugs,
Karen TJG
Okay, I made these yesterday, and they were really, really good hot out of the oven. This morning, I had sausage gravy on one–I know sacrilege to cover up the lovely flavors, but they came through! I’ll make these again, even though “I” have to have other things to do in the kitchen for 1-1/2 hours in order to watch the onions while they caramelize. I’ll also use the recipe again without the onion, just as a good basic biscuit-flavored-muffin, which avoids the fuss of patting or rolling out biscuit dough on a floured board, cutting rounds, reform and roll again, etc. I think I prefer muffins being the old-fashioned kind, rather than today’s glorified unfrosted cupcakes. Thank, Karen! (And, btw, the pictures were very helpful, too!)
Hello Sarah!
Thanks for your comments. It means a lot that you take the time to post a well thought out response. I am so happy you like the “Muffins.” I too, am not a fan of the cupcakes today that pass as muffins. I have been making these foe 40 + years but the Caramelized Muffins are truly a new invention of mine. I agree that making caramelized onions is tedious but oh…..they are so wonderful!
Happy cooking and hugs!
Karen, TJG