Tag Archives: muffin

Blueberry muffins

16 Feb

The kid is obsessed with blueberries, so every time we see them on any kind of sale we buy them.  However, my spouse and I aren’t always together, which is how we ended up with something like four pounds of blueberries in our fridge this week.  They are delicious, but that’s a lot of blueberries for a voracious 16 month old.  So I googled “blueberries recipe” and the first hit was an incredibly popular recipe for blueberry muffins.  I’ve made muffins a few times before, but one time was bacon mashed potato muffins and the other times are just quick breads cooked into muffin size, rather than a specific muffin recipe.  Granted, muffins are just individual sized quick breads, but something ended up different and amazing with this one.  Probably the just-right amount of streusel topping.

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I love recipes with eggsactly one egg; it makes that egg so eggstraordinary and also makes the recipe easy to eggsecute with my eggsecutive function.

I also chose this recipe because I already had all the ingredients in my pantry, though I am running low on baking powder.  If you bake at all you probably already have the ingredients for some kind of quick bread/muffin all the time, minus some fruit (so I often go for banana).

Whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder.  I do recommend a whisk instead of a fork so the baking powder can get well mixed in, but you do you.  Then mix the wet ingredients together right in the measuring cup: egg, oil, milk.

Sometimes I look at other blogs so whiskfully
Sometimes I look at other blogs so whiskfully
It's like they never forket anything
It’s like they never forket anything

Make a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour the wet mixture right into the middle of it.  Stir just until all the dry ingredients are moistened and there aren’t big pockets of flour anywhere: you want to stay clumpy so the muffin is tender.

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Some people are perfectionists and want to whisk everything perfectly smooth, and they’ll throw everything else out in the clumpster.  That’s how we make muffins! 

Then fold in your blueberries.  I love very fruity muffins with just enough muffin to hold the fruit together, but your preferences may vary.  Generally when baking with fruit/chocolate chips/nuts/mix ins you want to do that at the end, after the batter is all mixed, so you don’t have secret and disgusting clumps of flour/baking soda stuck to the nooks and crannies of your mix in.

It’s almost a one bowl recipe, and would be if you didn’t make the streusel topping and just sprinkled them with sugar instead.  But I love the streusel: cut together room temperature butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon with a fork until crumbly and streusel-looking.  This recipe makes six big muffins or twelve little ones; each got a heaping tablespoon of batter and a generous sprinkling of streusel.

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I don’t want you to misconstreusel things: those are silicon baking cups, which are like reusable cupcake liners and are awesome.

Bake em in a 400 degree oven and marvel at their beauty.  Also beware, these muffins are surprisingly heavy.  I wanted to eat two for breakfast this morning, but only made it through one and a half (kid ate the other half but didn’t like these as much as plain blueberries.  More for us!)

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We were actually so excited to eat these that I couldn’t take a picture before two were gone

20160215_214531Blueberry muffins, adapted from a ridiculously popular allrecipes recipe

1 1/2 c flour

1/2 c brown sugar + 1/4 c white sugar (or mix to your preferences; more brown = richer taste)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 c vegetable oil

1/3 c milk

1 egg

1 1/3 c fresh blueberries (or whatever fruit you have)

streusel ingredients: 2 TB room-temp butter, 1/4 c sugar, 2 TB flour, 1 tsp cinnamon

Whisk together flour, sugars, salt, and baking powder.  Measure out vegetable oil in a measuring cup, then whisk an egg into it, and add enough milk to make 1 cup.  Preheat oven to 400.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquid ingredients into it, then stir just until everything is moistened; there’ll be clumps.  Fold in the fruit so it’s well incorporated.

Use two knives or a fork and smash the butter into the sugar, flour, cinnamon for the streusel topping, until the mixture looks like big crumbs.

Heap batter into lined or oiled muffin cups, and sprinkle generously with streusel topping.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  Enjoy!

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Bacon mashed potato muffins

15 Jul

I went through a brief gnocchi obsession, so ended up with a big heap of flaked cooked potatoes after two nights of fresh homemade gnocchi.  I thought I’d try to make something a little bit more fun rather than just mashed potatoes (I’d already made potato pancakes) so I put together these bacon-cheddar-mashed potato muffins.

 

Aw it's about to be mashed up, baked in a very hot oven, and devoured. Po', po' potato.

Aw it’s about to be mashed up, baked in a very hot oven, and devoured. Po’, po’ potato.

As usual I just made these just out of the stuff in my pantry.  I think most recipes I found suggested sour cream, but I believe in plain yogurt.  Also the basil and chives are from my roommate’s herb garden in front of our house!

First, chop up your bacon, and then throw it in a pan over medium-high heat.  Meanwhile, chop your onion.

We've been to board game geek con before. Maybe we should go to a convention just for people who finish undergraduate in liberal arts: a B.A. Con

We’ve been to board game geek con before. Maybe we should go to a convention just for people who finish undergraduate in liberal arts: a B.A. Con

She'll make you cry every time... that onion's a huge (d)ice queen

She’ll make you cry every time… that onion’s a huge (d)ice queen

Toss in the onion when the bacon is pretty far on its way (cooked, but not crisp) and give it a shake.

Keep the heat on for your bacon and onion, unless you want bacoff and onioff. And who wants that? (scoff)

Keep the heat on for your bacon and onion, unless you want bacoff and onioff. And who wants that? (scoff)

Get that beautifully cooked- get some caramelization in your onions and some crisp in your bacon.  Set aside to cool.

Now, as we just about always do when baking, we do the wet and dry ingredients.  Only potatoes are sort of a cross between the two.  Beat your egg with some melted butter, milk and yogurt.  I was fresh out of milk so skipped this.

You yellow bellied coward, come here and take your yogurt like a man! Or an egg, really.

You yellow bellied coward, come here and take your yogurt like a man! Or an egg, really.

I’m missing some photos, but mix in your herbs and potatoes.  I recommend going just crazy on your herbs.  Also I forgot to add salt here because I’m silly but you should do that.  Then mix in your cooled bacon and onion.

So fluffy!

So fluffy!

Shred your cheese and add tons of it.  Like much more than you’d expect.

Guys I'm such a whiz at adding this stuff. You could call me a cheese whiz.

Guys I’m such a whiz at adding this stuff. You could call me a cheese whiz.

This is when the recipe says to add two cups of flour but I ran out so I only added one cup.  It still worked, they were just more mashed potato-y and less muffin-y than expected.  The big problem with mine was the lack of salt.  Salt is key.

If I ate all of these I would be totally incupacitated

If I ate all of these I would be totally incupacitated.

Bake until lightly browned!  Yum!

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Recipe adapted from Kayotic Kitchen:

2 c mashed potatoes (boiled, then flaked)

1 c flour

1.5 c grated cheese (I used cheddar)

1 c plain yogurt

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

4 strips bacon, chopped into 1/2″ pieces

2 TB butter, melted

2 TB herbs (I used fresh basil and chives, but anything will do.  If you use dried, cut to tsps.)

 

Cook bacon until cooked, then add onion and cook until brown and bacon is crisp.  Set aside.

Mix yogurt, melted butter, eggs, salt, and herbs.  Also if you want to use more flour and have it be more muffin-y, add 3/4 c milk here.  Add in potatoes, mix well.  Add bacon-onion and grated cheese, keep on mixing.

Add flour and stir just until combined.  If you don’t have self-rising flour and want it to be more muffin-y, sift in 1 tsp each baking powder and baking soda.  If you used milk, add an extra cup of flour.

Bake in muffin tins at 350 for 30 minutes or until set.

 

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