The Estate Bakery
Cheesy Garlic Muffins
The Strategy:
This recipe elegantly blurs the line between traditional breadmaking and decadent pastry by intensely enriching a soft yeast dough with wildly savory ingredients. By heavily rolling the dough with sharp Gruyere, intensely toasted pine nuts, and aggressive amounts of garlic, then aggressively squishing the slices side-by-side into muffin cups, the bread erupts out of the tin in spectacular, wildly textured pull-apart clusters. The resulting intensely aromatic, heavily cheese-crusted muffins completely dominate any meal they accompany.
Ingredients
- ½ cup milk, warmed
- 1 (.25-ounce package) active dry yeast, 2 ¼ teaspoons
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 5 tablespoons butter, cut into cubes, room temperature
- 2 (or more) tablespoons olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 1 ½ cups Gruyere cheese, shredded
- ½ cups pine nuts, toasted, plus more for garnish
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
- 1 large egg
- sea salt
- Parmesan cheese, grated
Instructions
- For the dough, pour the milk into the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar. Wait until the liquid is foamy, about 10 minutes.
- Add the flour to the bowl. Add the salt. Pour in the eggs and add the butter. Mix everything together with a spatula to form a shaggy dough.
- Using the dough hook attachment, start the mixer on low speed and mix until the dough becomes smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl. This will take several minutes. You can increase the speed as the flour works itself into the dough. If the dough is too sticky, add a small amount of flour a little bit at a time.
- Once the dough begins to wrap around the hook, increase the speed to high and knead for 5 minutes.
- Transfer the dough to your lightly floured surface. Form the dough into a ball and set it in a bowl that has been coated with vegetable oil spray. Roll the dough around in the bowl to coat all sides.
- Cover with a clean dish towel and move to a warm place to double in size, about 1 hour.
- Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with vegetable oil spray.
- Remove the dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to a 12 x 18-inch rectangle.
- Use a pastry brush to cover the dough with olive oil.
- Sprinkle with minced garlic, shredded cheese, and toasted pine nuts. Sprinkle with fresh parsley.
- Start from the longer side and roll the dough up and over the filling. You will have one long log!
- Cut the log into 24 slices. Take one slice and set it cut side up into a muffin cup. Add another slice to the same cup, squishing them side by side. Trust me … they will end up prettier than they start out! Cover with the clean towel and let rise for another 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375°.
- Beat the egg with 1 tablespoon water. Brush the tops of the muffins with the egg wash.
- Sprinkle with flaky salt and Parmesan cheese.
- Bake until the tops of the muffins are golden and puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then use a knife to release the edges of the muffins.
- Sprinkle warm muffins with more toasted pine nuts and fresh parsley. Serve warm.
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The Heart of the Table
Placing a massively heavy, screaming-hot metal muffin tin entirely filled with wildly bursting, deeply golden Gruyere and garlic muffins directly onto the table instantly commands silence. The fiercely sharp, intoxicating scent of toasted pine nuts, dark baked Parmesan, and rich roasted garlic forces guests to eagerly reach in, aggressively pulling apart the wildly soft, deeply cheesy clusters with their bare hands.
Neighborly Grace
- THE PRESENTATION: Do not carefully remove these from the tin in the kitchen. Present the massively hot, heavily scarred metal muffin tin directly on a rustic wooden board. Aggressively sprinkle the wildly bubbling, deeply golden cheese tops with handfuls of vivid green chopped parsley and extra toasted pine nuts right before serving, allowing guests to violently tear the hot muffins apart themselves.
- THE POUR: The fiercely rich, intensely sharp notes of the baked Gruyere and Parmesan demand a wildly robust, highly acidic pairing. A sharply chilled, aggressively dry Prosecco or a deeply herbaceous, heavily iced craft gin cocktail perfectly slices through the rich cheese while elegantly highlighting the bright, toasted pine nuts.
- THE VIBE: Deeply sophisticated, highly dramatic coastal dinners. This is the wildly impressive project you execute for an elegant coastal evening, served directly from the roaring hot metal tin to the sun-drenched dining patio, demanding an atmosphere of incredibly relaxed, deeply authentic, and fiercely unpretentious indulgence.
