Monthly Archives: September 2013

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Blueberry muffins

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I love blueberry muffins. My mom makes amazing blueberry muffins, and hers are the standard to which every other muffin falls short. She uses the recipe of her good friend.

I grew up within a short drive of the Wild Blueberry Capital of Canada, and blueberries are the official fruit of my home province. Represent, bitches.

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There is a large blueberry field behind my dad’s cottage, so I have eaten a lot of blueberries in my life. In fact blueberries are such a big deal where I grew up, we have town festivals to celebrate them. Imagine. Everybody turns out just to pimp one particular fruit. When I was little, we’d dress in blue shirts and stand on marked spots to form a big human blueberry and they’d take aerial photos.

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Time required: 1 hr

Yields: 14

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $28

Cost per muffin: $2

Kitchen implements I used:

  • muffin tin + large muffin liners

Ingredients:

  • 2 C flour
  • ½ C granulated white sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 3½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 C milk
  • ⅓ C vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 C blueberries

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat open to 400°F / 204°C and put muffin liners in tray.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Measure out the milk and oil into a liquid measuring cup.

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4. Beat egg until it’s foamy, then add to liquid.

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5. Add wet to dry, stirring until just combined. The batter will have a slight pull to it.

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6. Fold in the blueberries. Hopefully you have Canadian berries, but if not I guess you’ll have to make do with your inferior fruit. Frozen berries bleed colour but who cares because the bluer the merrier.

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7. Spoon batter into prepared tray.

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Leave some room for expansion.

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8. Bake 18-20 minutes and move to wire rack.

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9. After cooling, store in a sealed container. Take one with your tea and call me in the morning.

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Verdict: Delicious!  The texture improved over night.

I did try one last night after they were freshly made, and found it a bit disappointing. The bottom of the muffin stuck to the liner.  I called Mom, who suggested bake them for 15 minutes, leave them in tray for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack.

But when I had one this morning, it was bang on and the liner peeled off without sticking. So I think I’ll reduce baking time by 2 minutes next time and see how it goes.

Playlist: Final Fantasy VI – Another World of Beasts

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“Give it to us raw, Precious!”

My latest attempt at banana bread resulted in something that fooled the senses at first. It smelled done, it felt done, and the toothpick test (in 5 places) indicated it was cooked through, so I served it.

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The first slice was fine.  The second slice was fine. Sometime later, I noticed it was a bit… juicy. I dissected the loaf and the centre was jiggly. It was so raw, I became rather disgusted and put the camera down. It couldn’t, shouldn’t, be photo-documented any further. I confided to my bestie about what happened.

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“That’s amazing. You and loaves of anything don’t mix.”

It’s true! My ginger loaf and banana breads always come out of the oven screwed up.  Maybe I need more practice. In the Year of Pie and the Trials and Tribulations of Fudge, it didn’t take too long to get it right. I just made it all the time for awhile (my guts are recoiling in memory) until I got it right.

So; practice. The worst part of making banana bread is letting the bananas ripen.  There is a fine line between over-ripe fruit and putrefied fruit, turn your back for a few hours and suddenly instead of squashing mushy bananas, you are splitting the skin with a knife and watching the clear fluid burst out like a floater fished from the river. Zombie fruit on the counter isn’t my idea of a good time. Experiments in cellular degeneration gone awry.

Oh well. Time to get back to The Rotting Bread.