Blueberry Muffins

It's -40 out.  The temperature dropped Friday and it's not getting much warmer than -30 for the next week or so.  We're all cooped up and it's just feeling chilly, so I turned to the kitchen.  I have blueberries in the freezer!

As you know I'm a huge fan of my 1975 edition Joy of Cooking, but to me their blueberry muffin recipe doesn't stand out like their banana bread recipe.  They use a basic muffin recipe and add stuff to it, and I've always found their base muffin kind of bland.  AllRecipes bailed me out with a nice blueberry muffin recipe.  Is it really to die for?  While I've yet to meet a muffin for which I'd commit murder these are really very good and will be made again.  Probably tomorrow.

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.  Makes 8 servings.

I got ten muffins out of the batch - I filled the muffin cups to about 1/4" from the top to leave room for the crumb topping.  They rose up just lovely!  I used a pastry cutter to make the topping and I had twice as much as would fit on the muffins. I saved it for another batch. 

Kiddo also approved of the crumble topping.

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins

I was cleaning out my pantry yesterday.  I have to do it now and then, and look at the weath of canned goods getting dusty and the odd baking ingredients I don't use often.  What I discovered is that I once again, thanks to TEFAP, have a wealth of applesauce and oatmeal.  They also gave us a gallon of frozen blueberries.  It seemed like muffin time to me!

I looked at several recipes and in the end combined one from Recipezaar and one from Joy the Baker. These are whole grain, low fat, and quite tasty.  Recipezaar's includes a tasty crumble topping that I didn't use, because these will be frozen for preschool snacks this fall.  Joy's incorporated the blueberries.  I also doubled the recipe, as those little kids can eat a lot of muffins!

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned)
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg white

Heat oven to 400. Line 12 medium muffin tins with papercups.

Combine oats, flour, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Add applesauce, milk, brown sugar, oil and egg white. Mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Add blueberries and mix only until distributed.  Fill muffin cups almost full.

Bake 20-22 minutes until deep golden brown.

Banana Bread

The kids love muffins. I love banana bread! Making a week of snacks for Junior's preschool class has me getting out all kinds of recipes, including this one. The original recipe is from my faithful 2nd edition Joy of Cooking. I took blue ribbons at the fair with it as a kid, and you can tell it's a favorite recipe because the cookbook opens right to it and there's batter splats on the page!

The trick to awesome banana flavor in banana bread is to really let the bananas go. They should be darn near black and not quite liquid. Not only does it crank the flavor up, but it adds tons of moisture. This recipe is naturally low-sugar and low-fat because of that.

If you're planning to make banana bread, watch at the grocery for mark-down bananas. Around here they run 20 to 30 cents a pound less, and you want them all mushy anyway.

Quick Banana Bread

1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cups shortening
2/3 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups ripe banana pulp

Optional additions:
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup chopped nuts

This works best if all ingredients are room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl blend shortening, sugar, and lemon rind until creamy. Add eggs and banana to the sugar mixture.

Add the sifted ingredients in about three parts to the sugar mixture, beating the batter after each addition until smooth. Fold in any nuts or other goodies.

Place the batter in a greased bread pan and bake for one hour or until done. For muffins, bake 15-20 minutes. Makes one loaf or 12 muffins.

Usually with muffins or quick breads you want to mix them as little as possible or they get tough, but that's not true with this recipe, mix it very thoroughly. If the bread will last in your house, wait until it's completely cool before cutting - the steam escaping will make it go stale faster. That's not usually a problem around here.

For the kiddies I made blueberry banana muffins!