Carmelized onion and rosemary muffins

Everything. Everything in the cupcake book. Needs to be doubled. That's what I'm learning.

Alas, not early enough to save these almost-tasty little morsels.

This recipe calls for 1 lb. of caramelized onions, chili powder and cornmeal. I'd never caramelized onions before so that was the first step. This is what I now know: 1.) Put in contacts. 2.) Use a sharp knife. We cry because the knife is smashing onion cells which release the gas to which our eyes react. A sharp knife slices through the cells more easily and avoids smashing them. 3.) Have a friend cut half the onion. Actually, Alton Brown suggests cutting onions underwater. This seems like a good idea but really? How does that work out logistically? 4.) Caramelizing onions takes a loooonnnnggggg time. 15-20 minutes. Here is a picture of my beautiful onions:


Aren't they beautiful!?


After caramelizing the onions, the rest of the recipe is straightforward. Chop the rosemary, mix with eggs, cornmeal, a little flour, some baking powder, the chili powder etc. etc. The muffins have a nice little kick of chili at the end but are otherwise very subtle.

Next time I make these muffins, I'm going to double the onions, throw in some extra chili and rosemary and see how that goes.

Mostly I'm just proud of my onions.