blueberry muffins - probably the only blueberry entry i'll make

Being the sweet granddaughter that I am, I chose to spend Christmas with my grandma. She lives in a boring midwestern town where everyone knows everyone, and where seeing someone under the age of 30 is a rare occurrence. With my newly found baking skills (okay maybe not so much skills; more so of a baking interest) I wanted to have fun with my grandma and bake all day every day. I should note that my grandma isn't the typical "I-got-this-recipe-from-my-grandma"-grandma, she's more of the "I-can-teach-you-how-to-milk-a-cow"-grandma. Not to mention she hasn't baked a single batch of cookies in years, so she obviously was a little rusty. No fear grandma, I will take over the baking!


I asked her what types of baked-goods she liked, and she basically said everything. AWESOME! Finally a person who'll eat anything I make, and always say that it tastes good! She did mention she liked blueberry muffins (which is great, because I can't bake anything witth blueberries for the picky-eater in my life), so I searched and searched for a recipe. It didn't take me very long until I found a Cook's Illustrated recipe, and I immediately stopped my search.


What is interesting about this recipe is that they tell you to make a blueberry-jam-thing with half the berries, with the other half remaining as whole berries. The jam was easy to make; just add blueberries, water, sugar, and mix them on the stove.


Then folding the batter with the blueberries.


Before baking, they tell you to add a teaspoon of the jam-mixture and swirl it in the batter. What a cute little effect, but quite unnecessary.


My new silicone muffin cups would have come in handy here. These tins have to be older than my dad.


Final product. Very pretty and fancy looking, but I wish there were more whole blueberries.


Inside was very moist and probably would make a good batter for similar muffins and cakes.


I think they look so pretty! My grandma loved them (but then again, she has never disliked anything in her life). My grandma also loves to save things (no lie) and put the remaining muffins in her freezer for "later snacks"... a.k.a. to never be seen again.

---RECIPE---
"Best Blueberry Muffins" from Cook's Illustrated

lemon sugar topping: (Completely omitted)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1+1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest from 1 lemon

muffin batter:
2 cups fresh blueberries
1+1/8 cups plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2+1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2+1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1+1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions:
1. For the topping: Stir together sugar and lemon zest in small bowl until combined; set aside.
2. For the muffins: Adust oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Bring 1 cup blueberries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing berries with spoon several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to 1/4 cup, about 6 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and cool to room remperature, 10-15 minutes.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl. Whisk remaining 1 1/8 c. sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick and homogeneous, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. (Batter will be very lumpy with few spots of dry flour; do not overmix.)
4.Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups (batter should completely fill cups and mound slightly). Spoon teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into center of each mound of batter. Using chopstick or skewer, gently swirl berry filling into batter using figure-eight motion. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over muffins.
5. Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17-19 minutes, rotating muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.
6. To substitute frozen berries. Cook 1 cup as directed in Step 2. Rinse remaining berries under cold water and dry well. In step 3, toss dried berries into flour mixture before adding egg mixture. Proceed with recipe as directed.

amount:
Makes 12 muffins. (we made 14, probably because I was so afraid to actually fill the batter to the top as they stated)

ricotta muffins - so heavy they could break a window

Okay, I don't want to hear it. Yes, muffins with ricotta seem odd (especially after adding chocolate chips) but it really isn't! There's a ton of recipes online for ricotta muffins/cakes/baby-cakes... but I yet again improvised for a missing ingredient. Buttermilk = Yogurt, according a random website I found. From now on I'm going to force myself to follow the recipe completely, even if it means I need to take a last minute run to the grocery store to buy unnecessarily expensive products. I also should have known that yogurt and ricotta together equals a really dense piece of bakery.


Time out- Look at these sexy silicone cupcake liners! My boyfriend (who knows me all too well) got these for me as part of my extensive birthday/Christmas presents. His impatience got the best of him, and I'm not complaining because I got some awesome stuff. These little red babies really are neat though- The cupcake easily slides out, they're easy to wash, I don't even think I need a muffin tin, but more importantly- no more buying stupid paper liners!


Mixing the dough, it seemed really gooey (obvi because of the ricotta and yogurt combination). Whatever, I added the chocolate chips (the website I got it from suggested fruit, which probably would have been better).


In the new silicone liners they go...


After I removed them from the oven, they looked pretty darn good... I mean, they were pretty heavy, but they still appeared to be muffin-like.


Okay- I just want to say this- I like dense things! Granted, these were extremely dense, but I didn't find them overly bothersome. As long as muffins aren't too cake-like or too dry, I'm perfectly content. I don't think anyone else agreed with me though...


Insides looked nice, fluffy and air-pocket-y.


I really didn't mind them if they were warm... Well, maybe it was because I just like anything with chocolate.


Apparently no one else liked them because none were eaten. Whatever... you win some, you lose some. This one was a loss.

---RECIPE---
Taken from Cookie Madness.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1+1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup part skim ricotta cheese (I used whole ricotta)
1 cup buttermilk (substituted with yogurt, grrr)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a standard size 12 cup muffin tin with flour-added cooking spray (I didn't need to, obvi because of my silicone cups!)
2. In a mixing bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. In a second medium-sized bowl, and whisk together the ricotta cheese, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.
3. Pour the ricotta mixture and the melted butter into the flour mixture and stir just until ingredients are blended; do not over-mix.
4. Stir in cherries, lemon and lemon juice or if making chocolate chip, omit cherries, lemon and lemon zest and add chocolate chips.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. It should come all the way to the top.
6. Bake on center rack of oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven. Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then remove and let cool completely.

amount:
Makes 12 muffins (for some reason I made at least double that...)

first attempts/projects

Compilation of my previous tries. These are from September-October. I’d say these were valiant efforts (:


Nostalgia- The first night I cooked dinner for my boyfriend, which brought me this strange enjoyment from cooking. So I guess I could blame this weird obsession I now have with cooking, on this fateful night.


Appetizer:
Pesto, garlic, butter toasted baguette.
Homemade ravioli (by homemade I mean dry won ton wrappers counts) stuffed with ricotta cheese, pesto, and mozzarella cheese.
Entree:
Pesto rotini with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.
Ricotta and pesto stuffed chicken breasts, breaded and fried, topped with slices of mozzarella cheese.
Dessert:
Cookies from Dunkin Donuts (lol) because I got too tired to bake.
PS- Can you tell I’m a fan of pesto?


Pecan pie I made for my boyfriend. It turned out quite good. The only suggestion I got was to make more filling on the bottom with a layer of pecans at the top, opposed to mixing it all together. Simple fix.


Breakfast I made for my boyfriend (missing the actual breakfast part lol). It included: Scrambled eggs with cream cheese and fried hot dogs, cream cheese stuffed french toast, blueberry cream cheese muffins, football shaped brownies (fudge brownies with white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, walnuts, covered in chocolate icing with cream cheese frosting lining for the footballs).
-Once again, notice my affinity to cream cheese?


Delicious cookie I must say. These disappeared within a short amount of time. Semi-sweet chocolate chips with white chocolate chips in a chewy soft cookie. (I’m still on the quest for the perfect cookie- coming soon).


My boyfriend insisted I make him cookies with his two favorite things: white chocolate chips and coconut. I told him that the batter might not come out as well, because of the massive amount of coconut he wanted and because he didn't have any baking soda in his house. Needless to say, we worked our way around it, and came up with this beauty. It was actually very good, but a little too sweet for my taste. Based on the Cook's Illustrated cookie.


My first attempt at apple pie. It probably would have came out better if my boyfriend and I had some restraints on ourselves and waited the few hours of "setting" time the recipe stated. The second we cut into the freshly warm pie, oozing deliciousness of the apple pie filling seeped out, thus not allowing for proper "setting" time. Next time I’ll hold myself back. It was still good though, as long as it was microwaved and had a massive amount of vanilla ice cream along side.


Pate choux! A lot easier than it seems. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a picture with them filled. They were pretty good, although next time I’ll make them a bit more rounded.