The Search for the Best Blueberry Muffin

For this round of the Crazy Cooking Challenge (CCC), we are looking to find the best blueberry muffin recipe.  I immediately knew that I had to make my favorite muffin, Barefoot Contessa's Tri-Berry Muffin. However, the rules for the CCC are that you must make a recipe found out there in blogland......but one quick search, and I found that The Sisters Cafe had tried, and loved, this recipe.

This recipe is more than just a blueberry muffin recipe.  It's got blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries!  And there's a little twist in the recipe.......you don't add the sugar until the very end of putting the batter together.  This allows the sugar to form a delicious crunchy top on these muffins.  I've made these 4 or 5 time now, and they have always been a hit!

Triple Berry Muffins
Source: Barefoot Contessa via The Sisters Cafe

3 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup diced fresh strawberries
1 1/2 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line or grease muffin cups.  Sift dry ingredients together in a bowl.  In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and melted butter.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture into the well.  Stir until just combined.  The batter will be lumpy.....do not overmix!  Add the berries and the sugar and stir gently.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Makes 16-18 muffins.

Enjoy!!



Check out all of the other entries in the search for the best blueberry muffin!


This post is linked to:
Seasonal Inspiration - Sweets for a Saturday - Scrumptious Sunday - Sweet Indulgences Sunday - Mix It Up Monday - Tasty Tuesday - Tuesday Talent Show - Crazy Sweet Tuesday -  T' Time - Link Party - Tip Me Tuesday - Mrs. Fox's Sweet Party - Link It Up Wednesday - What's New Wednesday - Cast Party Wednesday - Sweet Treats Thursday - Full Plate Thursday - Taste This Thursday - Anything Goes Linky - Feature Friday Free-for-All - Friday Favorites - Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday - Sweet Tooth Friday - Friday Food

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

I found myself with an abundance of blueberries and zucchini this week.  Hmmmmm......what to do with them........

I checked the recipe section of my CSA (Abundant Harvest Organics), and lo and behold.....there's a recipe for Blueberry Zucchini Bread.  Well, I like Blueberry bread, and I like Zucchini Bread.......but would I like those two flavors together?  I wasn't positive....but I thought it was worth a shot!  And since it's a quick bread, the only difficulty is in grating the zucchini.....and really, how difficult is that?

Well, the answer is I love it!  And the hubby absolutely adores this bread (he insists it's cake!)!  The zucchini keeps this bread super duper moist, and the sweet blueberries add delicious bursts of flavor to go with the cinnamon-spiked bread.  Definitely will be remaking this at some point soon!

BLUEBERRY ZUCCHINI BREAD

Adapted from Abundant Harvest Organics

3 eggs lightly beaten                                    
1 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil                                       
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp vanilla extract                                      
¼ tsp baking soda
2 ¼ cups white sugar                                    
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 cups shredded zucchini                             
1 pint fresh blueberries
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a large loaf pan or muffin tins.


Beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar in a large bowl.  Add in the shredded zucchini.   Mix in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon until combined.  Then gently add the blueberries and fold into the mixture.


Transfer the batter to the loaf pan or muffin tins.  For a loaf pan, bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.  In a muffin tin bake for 15-20 minutes.


Cool and then turn out onto wire racks.

Enjoy!

This post is linked to:

Sweets for a Saturday

Sweet Indulgences Sunday

Monday, Mmmm.....Dessert

This Week's Cravings

These Chicks Cooked

Cast Party Wednesday

Full Plate Thursday

Turning the Table Thursday

Show Off Your Stuff

Fresh Food Friday

Friday Food

My New Favorite Cookie

While I normally favor chocolate desserts over fruity ones (not that I don't like them, it's just that if I was forced to choose, I would have to choose chocolate).....however, I have found a cookie that has absolutely moved to the top of my favorite cookies list!!

This recipe is another from the geniuses at Momofuku's Milk Bar in NYC (as was the Crack Pie recipe from earlier this week) that I saw in the latest issue of Bon Appetit.  These are their Blueberry and Cream Cookies, and I'm not kidding that you really, really need to try these!

Unlike the Lemon Blueberry Crumb Bars from yesterday which use a ton of fresh blueberries, these cookies use dried blueberries (I used dried wild blueberries from Trader Joe's....they're so cute and little). These cookies also use what seems to be the secret weapon in most of Milk Bar's desserts....nonfat milk powder.  In this recipe you make what they call "Milk Crumbs" prior to mixing the cookies together.  These come together in no time, but you'll need to let the milk crumbs cool before using them in the cookie recipe.

There's a couple of things in this recipe you'll want to note (aside from it using the Milk Crumbs):
1 - The recipe uses corn syrup along with granulated and brown sugar.
2 - You'll want to beat the batter for about 10 minutes after the eggs have been put in.  This allows the sugar to dissolve and you'll end up with the fabulously smooth batter.
3 - The recipe calls for the cookies to be scooped out onto a cookie sheet, and then left to sit overnight in the refrigerator.  This allowed them to firm up beautifully, and they really looked like bakery cookies when they came out of the oven.

Thanks for another fabulous recipe Milk Bar!  Go to Epicurious to get the recipe....and Enjoy!!

This post is linked to:
Sweets for a Saturday
Sweet Indulgences Sunday
These Chicks Cooked
Cast Party Wednesday
Full Plate Thursday
Turning the Table Thursday
Friday Food
Sharing Sunday
This Week's Cravings

Lemon Blueberry Crumb Bars

I found myself with an abundance of blueberries again this week, and I needed to find something to do with them.  When I saw this recipe for Lemon Blueberry Crumb Bars on My Baking Addiction, I knew I had found the one.  It calls for 4 cups of blueberries!  Yummy!  I just love the purple color that blueberries turn when you bake them......so pretty!

These bars couldn't be simpler!  And the best part is that you can use your food processor to put the crust/crumb topping together......easy peasy!  With so many blueberries, the blueberry layer of these bars has more of a blueberry pie taste, unlike most blueberry coffeecakes that are simply cakes with a few blueberries tossed in.  And since the blueberries only have sugar and a little cornstarch tossed with them, you just get that true blueberry flavor......not a funky artificial pie filling flavor (which turned me off from fruit pies for years!).

The hubby loves fruit desserts....and he won't stop raving about these!  He's a happy guy!

Check out My Baking Addiction for the recipe.....and Enjoy!!

This post is linked to:

Full Plate Thursday

Fresh Food Friday

Sweets for a Saturday

Sweet Indulgences Sunday

These Chicks Cooked

Cast Party Wednesday

Picnic and Finger Foods Party

Sweet Treats Thursday

Sharing Sunday

This Week's Cravings

Sharing Sundays

Blueberry Boy Bait

It's blueberry season!!  After buying a couple of huge containers of blueberries, I had to start finding some recipes to use them in........and this one uses a whole 2 cups of blueberries......yeah!

According to Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy, this is based on a recipe from the 50's that was entered in a Pillsbury baking competition.  The baker that submitted it claimed that one bite of this cake and the boys were hooked.  Well, I gotta say the hubby loved these!  

One goof-up I made in this one (and it's a pretty easy recipe, so I feel kind of silly).......I forgot to toss the blueberries with flour before folding them into the batter.  Because of that, most of my blueberries sank to the bottom while the cake was baking.  If I had remembered to do that step (my fault for trying to get this in the oven and get the boy's dinner on the table at the same time), then the blueberries would have been scattered throughout the cake, instead of being primarily on the bottom.  Oh well......at least the cake still tasted fantastic.....moist, buttery.....and with a yummy sugar-cinnamon topping.

The hubby and I had this for dessert last night.....fantastic with a little whipped cream!  Today I had a piece with my afternoon coffee.....a perfect pick-me-up!!

Check out Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy for the recipe.......Enjoy!!

Morning Muffins......2 ways

I can't believe that the school year is almost done!!  Where did the year go???  My oldest is graduating preschool and moving on to Kindergarten!  He's been telling anyone who will listen that now that he's 5 he is ready for Kindergarten.....sigh......

Today was the last day the mommies at school got together to put on an activity for the kiddos.  So we had ourselves a little luau today, complete with the hula, limbo, digging for shells, and pineapple and punch!

One of my jobs today was to provide snacks for the mommies, so I decided to try out two muffin recipes that caught my fancy.  The first one is a streusel-topped blueberry muffin from Our Best Bites.  The hubby has declared that these are one of his favorite muffins ever!  I'm a sucker for anything with a streusel-y topping.....I just love it.....but in addition these have a zing and tang from lemon zest and buttermilk.

I also needed to have some chocolate.....I always need chocolate!  The day before I needed to decide what I was making, a recipe for triple chocolate muffins showed up in my inbox from Bake at 350.  Uh, seriously?  Triple chocolate.....I am sooo in!

The triple chocolate comes from dark cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate chips, and semisweet chocolate chips.....some serious chocolate power!

I've got to say that I really loved these....but they are really really chocolate-y.  If you aren't a chocolate lover, like the hubby.....these probably won't be your absolute favorite....but you won't be able to deny that they're pretty darn tasty.  For a chocolate love like me, these are a perfect way to start the day!!

Honestly, you could probably just dust a little powdered sugar on the top of these , or add a little whipped cream, and call them a cupcake and serve for dessert.  Does anyone know the technical different between a muffin and cupcake?  Is it just the time of day that it's served?

Well, thanks to all of the mommies that helped make this year's PVC (Parent Volunteer Club) a lot of fun!!  And if you want to check out these recipes, got to Our Best Bites and Bake at 350....and Enjoy!

This post is linked to:
Sweets for a Saturday