Ever since I was given my microplane, I've been going zest crazy. I add lemon zest to my eggs nearly every morning, orange zest to my oatmeal, I've even used zest as a condiment on sandwiches. It's a beautiful thing indeed, and so often discarded and overlooked!
I've been wanting to feature limes in office food for a while, and this week they were cheap; 5 for $1! I've always liked the combination of raspberries and lime, something I picked up from my mom, I think. In one of the wonderful workings of the world, raspberries were also on sale. I looked and looked, but couldn't find any recipes that combined the two in a satisfactory and transportable manner. I thought about doing an angel food cake, but then came across a recipe on epicurious for raspberry-lemon muffins, adapted below.
Raspberry Lime Muffins(makes 12)
(adapted from epicurious.com)
1/2 cup sugar
zest of 2 small limes
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
36 raspberries (about 1 6 ounce container)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cups.
Mash together the lime zest and 1/2 cup sugar in a mixing bowl. Add in the rest of the sugar and butter and cream together until smooth with a hand mixer or pastry blender. With a whisk or pastry blender, mix in the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla.
In another mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour the wet
ingredients over the dry and stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
Scoop an even amount of batter into each muffin cup. Add the raspberries on top. Bake for 15 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake 15 more minutes. Remove muffins from tin and let cool on a wire rack.
