Corn Bread Muffins

What's this? A recipe? Why yes! Now that my exam is over, I've been getting back into the kitchen a bit. I made these for the express purpose of leaving them out to be stale so I could use them in our Thanksgiving stuffing, but since the recipe yielded more than expected, we had extras for noming. I found the recipe at Food Network's site.

Blueberry Muffins--Take Two

My daily contribution to my year long "Around the House" photo project. 365 photos. Blogged here.



Last summer, I made blueberry muffins. And while I liked that recipe, it wasn't omg-I'll-never-leave-you good. So, when I found myself when a container of blueberries and husband who wanted muffins, I thought I would try another. This time I turned to All Recipes. I figured with a 4.5 star rating and over 4,000 reviews, these had to be good.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Over the last couple of years, I have gotten more and more interested in cooking and baking things from scratch. Paired with this is an interest in making large batches of dishes and freezing them. The hubby and I made a go at this last year, before we moved, but the lack of kitchen space and our lack of recipes made that a short lived venture. Now that we are more settled, I'm revisiting the idea. This book had stellar reviews, so I bought a copy.

I was rather disappointed to see that a lot of recipes contained such standbys as Velveeta and cream cheese (and not all of them were meant to be frozen!), but I thought I would try some of the more "from scratch" recipes and see how they tasted/froze etc, so I picked their recipe for a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf.

Makes: Approximately 18 muffins

Ingredients
1 2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp nutmeg
1/2 tbsp ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup plain pumpkin
1/2 cup melted butter
6 oz chocolate chips

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 350F

MIX flour, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.

BLEND eggs in a small bowl
ADD pumpkin and melted butter
WHISK together
STIR in chocolate chips

POUR wet mixture into dry ingredients
FOLD together

POUR into greased baking pans

BAKE:
1.25 hours for bundt cake
40-45 min for loaves
20-25 min for muffins

My Thoughts
1. The recipe stated that it made 1 bundt cake, 2 large loaves, or 24 muffins, but a doubled recipe only netted me 24 muffins and a small loaf. I use a measured scoop to dole out my muffins so usually I am very close to the expected yield.

2. This recipe is...not that great. It's not terrible, it's serviceable, but it's nothing wonderful. The bread has a nice texture but the flavor is very plain. I will likely not make this again but instead try another recipe. Like this one from Joy the Baker. She's never steered me wrong.

Red Berry Muffins

Do not let their unassuming appearance fool you, these muffins are heavenly. And don't let the name "muffin" fool you either. They are more suitable for dessert than breakfast. A very delicious dessert. Based on this recipe from Joy the Baker who has never once let me down.

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup half and half
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup raspberries
3/4 cup strawberries
Brown Sugar

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 375F
GREASE or LINE muffin cups
WASH berries
SLICE strawberries into small pieces

MELT butter
WHISK in half and half, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla.

WHISK together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt
ADD butter mixture
STIR until just combined
FOLD in berries

SCOOP 2 tbsps batter into each tin
SPRINKLE generously with brown sugar

BAKE 18-25 minutes

My Thoughts
1. The original recipe called for turbinado sugar, but I used brown sugar instead. It lent a nice sweet crunchiness to the muffins that pushed them from good to great. It's certainly not required though if you are out.

2. As noted above, although fantastically delicious, these are probably a bit sweet for a stand alone breakfast. However, they would be a great addition to a brunch or as a sweet afternoon snack with some tea.

Banana Muffins

So, now that we all know not to try this recipe as anything other muffins, shall we discover how to bake the muffins I grew up on? Good.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2-3 overripe bananas

Directions
PREHEAT the oven to 350 degrees F

MIX flour and baking soda
SET aside

BEAT sugar, shortening, vanilla, and eggs at medium speed

MASH bananas

ALTERNATE adding flour mixture and bananas to the sugar mixture. Begin and end with the flour mixture.

BLEND well after each addition.

DROP into greased or lined muffin tins
BAKE for 20 minutes

My Thoughts
1. You can easily add nuts, if you prefer them, just mix them in right before you drop the batter into the muffin tins.

2. I do not add salt to this recipe because I like to butter my muffins and that gives them enough salt. If you would rather, you can add 1/4tsp of salt to the flour mix.

Famous Blueberry Muffins

I originally found this recipe over on Perry's Plate, a brilliant food blog (No seriously, go there now and read it. I'll wait.) Sadly for me something is gone horribly wrong and I can't find the entry to link to. Luckily for you, I printed it out and I love you all enough to retype it. (Or I know I'll lose my paper copy if I don't. Whatever works for you.)

This recipe is credited to Jessie Lundell.

Ingredients:
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1-2 cup blueberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F
Melt butter*.
Once melted, add milk, vanilla, egg and yolk. Stir until combined.
In a seperate bowl combine dry ingredients.
Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients. Stir until just moistened.
Wash blueberries, pat dry (take care to remove all stems!).
Toss with a bit of flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.
Fold berries into batter. (It will be thick and lumpy, adjust expectations accordingly and don't overstir.)
Fill lined or greased muffin tins to the top.
Bake for 18-20 min or until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

*I do this in a small bowl or large measuring cup in the microwave.

My thoughts:
1. I always remove salt from recipes, so naturally I didn't include the salt in this one either.
2. I love using the egg shell to separate out my egg yolk. Makes me feel like a fancy pants cook. This also means this would be a great recipe to bake fresh one morning, you could add some more eggs to that egg white and have some scrambled eggs. Mmmmm.
3. The first few times I made these I didn't have any wheat flour on hand (honestly? Didn't even know you could buy the stuff.) so I just used regular white flour. This last time I actually bought the wheat flour. It's much better with the wheat flour, they are too sweet without it--almost more of a dessert. So go pick up a little bag, it's totally worth it.