Pistachio Muffins Recipe: How to Make Pistachio Muffins
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Feb 18, 2024 • 3 min read
Make sweet and nutty pistachio muffins that taste as good as bakery ones with a few adjustments to a standard muffin recipe. Toast the muffins and slather them with butter or serve them with more pistachio-flavored sweet treats, like ice cream or pudding.
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What Are Pistachio Muffins?
Pistachio muffins are individually portioned quick breads featuring chopped pistachios and often artificial pistachio flavor (such as from pistachio pudding mix). Bakery-style pistachio muffins are usually sweeter than other muffins, making them closer to unfrosted cupcakes in nature. Shelled pistachio nuts are dark green, but it can be challenging to capture that color in a muffin without the use of food coloring. Matcha—a powdered green tea from Japan—can provide a bright-green color without dyes.
5 Tips for Making Pistachio Muffins
Make homemade pistachio muffins similar in appearance and flavor to those found in a bakery case using the five tips below.
- 1. Use matcha powder instead of food coloring. Instead of adding green food coloring to the muffin batter, use a natural ingredient, like matcha powder. The green color in matcha powder is potent, so a little bit goes a long way. Bloom the matcha powder in hot water, so the color evenly disperses throughout the muffin batter.
- 2. Chill the muffin batter for at least an hour. Many baked goods benefit from allowing the dough or batter to firm up in the refrigerator before baking, and muffins are no exception. Chilling the muffin batter in the fridge for an hour or more allows the flavors to develop.
- 3. Bake the muffins at a high temperature. “Oven spring” is a term professional bakers use to describe what happens to baked goods in the first few minutes of baking. It’s particularly relevant to sourdough baking, but muffins also experience oven spring. The hotter the oven, the more initial spring the muffins have, giving them the signature high dome of a bakery-style pistachio muffin.
- 4. Increase the amount of baking powder in the recipe. Oven spring is just one thing that gives homemade muffins a bakery feel. Increase the baking powder in the recipe by a teaspoon to provide extra lift to the muffins. However, adding too much baking powder causes a slight off-taste, so use this tip in conjunction with starting the muffins at a high oven temperature.
- 5. Sprinkle coarse sugar on the muffin tops before baking. After scooping the muffin batter into the prepared muffin pan, sprinkle coarse sugar or turbinado sugar on top for added sweetness and a crispy, caramelized crust. The sugar adds a nice contrast in texture to the tender crumb of the muffin.
Matcha Pistachio Muffins Recipe
makes
About 18 muffinsprep time
15 mintotal time
52 mincook time
37 minIngredients
- 1
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and line 2 standard muffin tins with paper liners (or grease them with cooking spray).
- 2
Place the pistachios on a rimmed baking sheet. Toast the pistachios in the oven until fragrant and golden brown, about 7 minutes.
- 3
Roughly chop the toasted pistachios.
- 4
In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
- 5
In a large, microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds. (Try melting the butter in 10-second increments to prevent splattering.)
- 6
Add the sugar, brown sugar, and toasted, chopped pistachios to the melted butter.
- 7
Whisk in the eggs, vanilla extract, and optional almond extract.
- 8
Pour the pistachio mixture into the flour mixture.
- 9
Using a wooden spoon, gently combine the wet ingredients and dry ingredients.
- 10
In a small bowl, dissolve the matcha powder in the hot water.
- 11
Add the matcha mixture to the milk.
- 12
Add the matcha milk mixture to the muffin batter, starting with a ½ cup.
- 13
If the batter is too thick, add the rest of the milk.
- 14
Using an ice cream scoop or spoon, fill the prepared muffin cups ¾ full.
- 15
Bake the muffins in the oven at 425 degrees for the first 10 minutes.
- 16
Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and continue to bake the muffins until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean, about 15–20 minutes.
- 17
Cool the muffins in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
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