Blueberry Muffin Bread

In an effort to reduce the number of muffin recipes (especially blueberry muffin recipes), I've decided to try my hand at baking muffin breads (albeit not intentionally... ).

You see, my dad is diabetic (which was completely tragic, let me tell you) and he can no longer have regular white flour (oh the humanity!).  I had a conversation with him not too long about about if he can have white whole wheat flour.  Which turned into a debate over whether or not WWW was the same nutritionally as regular WW.  I was steadfast in my stance that *King Arthur Flour* White Whole Wheat was the exact same as regular Whole Wheat.  I said, "I went to a KAF seminar on whole grains, thank you very much.  So I know what I'm talking about.  I cannot, however, vouch for any other companies's white whole wheat."  (Although in my house, you don't bring in other flour.  It's pretty much sacrilegious.)  Anyhoo, the wheat berries used by KAF are the exact same as the wheat berries used in their whole wheat flower except the berries are really light in color versus the red berry color used in whole wheat flour (hence the color difference).  He agreed to try something baked with KAF's WWW and this is what I whipped up.  Of course, my husband happened to mention that he wanted me to bake some muffins for him for breakfast this week so it killed two birds with one stone.  (I've still yet to figure out why my husband asks me such things.  He thinks I like to cook!)

This recipe originally made 12 muffins using all purpose flour.  By all means, substitute all purpose flour and you'll end up with 12 happy muffins.  However, if you're me and remember that whole wheat flours require additional liquid AFTER you've already divided your extremely thick dough into muffins and STILL have batter left over.  Which I promptly poured into aluminum 3x5 pans thus making Muffin Bread!  Yay for thinking on the fly! And even more Yay! for the fact that it all worked out extremely well.

Blueberry Muffin Bread (or just muffins)
adapted from Down Home with the Neelys

8 Tbsp. (1 stick) Salted Butter, melted (if using unsalted, add 1/4 tsp. salt)
2/3 c. Sugar + 1/3 c. Splenda (or just 1 c. Sugar)
2 Eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 c. Sour Cream (Daisy Light)
1/2 c. Milk (2%)
2 1/4 c. White Whole Wheat Flour (or All-Purpose)
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
Small Carton of Fresh Blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350.
Line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners and spray two mini loaf pan with cooking spray (if going the WWW route).
In a large bowl, cream together your butter and sugar.
Add eggs, one at a time, and mix together.
Now you'll add your vanilla, sour cream, and milk until combined.
Slowly mix in your flour, baking powder and soda, and salt (if using).  (If you're using AP flour, your mixture should be pretty smooth.  If you're using WWW flour, your mixture is going to be crazy thick.)
Fold in your blueberries with a spatula.
Evenly divide your batter into your muffin tin with a measuring cup (I use a 1/4 c. measure).  If you're using WWW flour, you should have a large amount of batter left over which you will divide into two 3x5 pans.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove muffins and set aside to cool on a wire rack.
Tent aluminum foil over your mini bread pans and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.

Blueberry Whole Wheat Muffins

I know what you're thinking... another blueberry muffin recipe?!  Well, I have a difficult secret to let you all in on.  I have waaaaaaay too many cookbooks.  *sighs*  There, I said it.  Do you feel that?  It's a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders.  Doesn't it feel nice? :)  I really do have a lot of cookbooks though - much to Ryan's amazement.  I believe when we counted, we got around 75 (although I have sold some that I didn't use but it has yet to really make a dent in my cookbook collection).  I can never get enough (especially baking cookbooks - no clue as to why.  It isn't like I like to bake or anything.).  So I continue to buy them!  It's a compulsion... I just can't stop.  Even now, I have around four or five cookbooks on my Amazon wish list.  So this is the reason why you will sometimes see the "same" recipe but it's different because it's from a different cookbook.  I shall do my best to ensure no one gets confused but let's be honest with each other, shall we?  I won't post a bad recipe so even if you do get confused, it's all good (literally).

So with this recipe, I wanted to make it slightly better for everyone so instead of making this recipe with regular all purpose flour, I used white whole wheat flour.  It has a more subtle wheat flavor than all out whole wheat flour but with all the whole wheat benefits.  But here's the trick with whole wheat/white whole wheat... sometimes that whole wheat-y flavor can overpower your baked goods.  So how do we overcome that wheat-y flavor??  Orange Juice.  Yep, the same stuff you'll probably drink with these muffins in the morning. Don't ask me why but you don't really taste the orange juice but it does cut through that wheat-y flavor so it makes everyone happy.  You can thank the people at King Arthur Flour later.

This recipe hails from a little bakery down in Savannah, Georgia, which, unfortunately, I have yet to visit but do not fear, Gaited Baker readers, for it is on my to-do list!  The bakery is called Back in the Day Bakery (which is a great name, by the way) and they recently released their cookbook which I drooled over for months before finally purchasing it.  I went back and forth and back and forth, asking myself, "Do I really need another baking cookbook?"  Of course, the answer was, "Yes!!!"

Blueberry Whole Wheat Muffins
courtesy of Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook

2 c. White Whole Wheat Flour (feel free to substitute all purpose if that's what you have on hand)
1 c. Sugar
1 T. Baking Powder
1/4 c. Canola Oil
4 T. Butter, Melted
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
2 Eggs
2 T. Orange Juice + enough Milk to equal 3/4 c. (omit orange juice if using AP flour)
1 c. Fresh or Frozen Blueberries

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray your 12 muffin cup papers and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, butter, vanilla, eggs, orange juice (if using), and milk.
Mix your wet ingredients into your dry until just combined.
Gently fold in your blueberries (you can toss them with a bit of flour if you're worried about them sinking - I didn't both with that and you'll see I didn't have that problem*.)
Scoop the batter into your muffin cups until about 2/3 full.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and muffins cooked through.
Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 very long minutes while you drool and wait for them to cool.
Store in an airtight container.

* - the few muffins that don't have berries on top are merely an accident.  The berries didn't sink!  Honest!

PDQ Blueberry Muffins

I know, I know.  I've already done a blueberry muffin recipe.  But sometimes, you want something that you can just (literally) throw into a bowl and put into the oven.  This is a perfect recipe for that.  I just happened to have some fresh blueberries that needed to be used up before they went bad and I knew that my last recipe called for fresh and although it was very good, I wanted a recipe that could use either frozen or fresh.  Enter this recipe!  The nice thing about this recipe is that it's so basic that you can add any sort of berry you want - blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, or even a mixture of both (if you like that sort of thing).  The key to remember is that you need to add your berries BEFORE you add your wet ingredients.  Why?  Keeps them from sinking when you bake them.  If you forget, toss the berries in just a tiny bit of flour and add them in.  Its the same concept, just at different times.  Oh, what does "PDQ" stand for?  "Pretty Darn Quick" :)

PDQ Blueberry Muffins
courtesy of King Arthur Flour's 200th Anniversary Cookbook

2 c. All Purpose Flour (KAF)
1/2 c. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
1 1/2 c. Berries (fresh or frozen)
1 c. Milk (I use skim because I always have that on hand)
1/4 c. Butter (I use salted.  If you have unsalted, add 1/2 tsp. salt)
2 Eggs

Preheat oven to 500 (yeah, that's hot but bear with me).
In one bowl, combine the dry ingredients together with a whisk.
Add in your berries.
In another bowl, combine your milk, butter, and eggs and mix until well combined.
Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredient and stir for 20 seconds.  Is this important?  Yes!  You want some lumps in your batter because it makes a light and tender muffins.
Pour into a light greased muffin tin/muffin cups.
As soon as you put the muffins in the oven, DROP THE TEMP to 400.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Free Form Peach Pie...

... or if you want to get all fancy about it, Peach Galette.  (No, I have no idea how to pronounce it.  That's why I call it the "free form peach pie".)

Remember the "I love strawberries" post?  Well, I love peaches too.  I love peaches a lot.  I eat them just like you would an apple - peach fuzz and all!  You can blame my father, he taught me to do it.  Everyone thinks I'm nuts for eating peach fuzz but in my own defense, I only eat peach fuzz on one type of peach... come to think of it, I only each one type of peach.  And they are peaches that can only be found at the farmer's market.  I have no idea what the name of the peach is but I know the flavor.  I've gotten peaches from the grocery store and they just aren't right.  So I tend to stock up on peaches I love once I find them.  The last time I got peaches, I wanted to make a pie but I didn't want to go through the whole process of actually making a pie (mainly because I was tired and it was around 8:30 at night when I suddenly had the bright idea to make something).  Enter Cooking Light.  Full of great recipes that are good to you and good for you! 

Now for a little product placement... you all know how much I love King Arthur Flour.  Awhile back, I placed an order that included a little thing called Instant ClearJel.  You're wondering what it is, aren't you?  According to all the reviews on the KAF website, the ClearJel is the greatest invention since sliced white bread, especially for people who bake fruit pies.  Fruit pies have this tendency to leak.  Leak a lot.  Instant ClearJel makes all that leaky mess disappear and form this lovely, yummy, gelatin-like substance.  You'll see in my picture that not ONE bit of my peach pie thingy (my other name for this recipe) leaked out of the sides!  Do you need ClearJel to make this recipe?  No - you could just as easily use cornstarch (but please dissolve it in a little water with a whisk or fork so you don't end up with cornstarch clumps!). 

Peach Galette / Free Form Peach Pie / Peach Pie Thingy
(courtesy of Cooking Light, Sept. 2001, adapted slightly by me!)

1 refrigerated pie crust
4 c. Peaches, fresh and pealed
1/4 - 1/3 c. Sugar (this all depends on how sweet your peaches are)
1/2 tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 Tbsp. Instant ClearJel (or Cornstarch)

Preheat oven to 425.
Line a large broiler pan or cookie sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.
Combine the peaches, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and ClearJel/cornstarch.
Roll out your pie crust until it's around 11 or 12 inches (you can easily do this with your hands in the pan itself - why dirty up another dish?).
Pour the peach mixture into the center of the pie crust.
Using a spoon, flatten the mixture slightly, moving the filling towards the crust, leaving a 1 1/2 inch border of pie crust.
Now fold that 1 1/2 inch pie crust border OVER the peach mixture.  You aren't covering the peach mixture, you're just making a crust.  Don't make it look pretty, it's supposed to look rustic!
Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes.
Reduce the temp. to 350 (don't take out the peach thingy!) and bake for an additional 20 minutes (lower temp and turn on the timer - don't wait until the temp drops to 350).

Calories:  232 per serving (makes 8 servings)

Note:  Feel free to add blueberries to this dish if you'd like.  Use 1 c. blueberries with 3 c. peaches!

Blueberry Muffins

I have a husband who loves blueberries.  Especially blueberry muffins.  When we went to the farmer's market in Raleigh last weekend and found $2 pints of fresh NC blueberries, I couldn't resist getting some.  So what does he ask for?  Blueberry muffins.  Off I go in search of a great blueberry muffin recipe.  Now I'm going to let you in on a secret - I've made muffins before and the last two times I tried to make them with a different recipe, it was a disaster.  Complete and utter disaster.  The outside was cooked perfectly but the insides weren't even cooked!  One batch I made basically looked like a bubble had formed between the inside and outside of the muffins.  I can't explain it.  That recipe promptly got thrown out.  So knowing my previous experience with blueberry muffins, I had to go back to my tried and true source - King Arthur Flour.  Now I know you're all thinking, "Here she goes again with the KAF!"  But let me assure you, I go back to this company's recipes for a reason.  Their recipes work.  Time and time again.  So I knew if I could find a blueberry muffin recipe that would work, it would be from them.  I looked in their All Purpose Baking cookbook and found a recipe that sounded just yummy!  I made it and I have gotten rave reviews from my husband and mom, both who have said they are some of the best muffins they have ever tasted!  Want rave reviews for your blueberry muffins?  Give these a shot!!

Classic Blueberry Muffins
(courtesy of The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion - The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook)

8 Tbsp/1 stick Butter, melted
1 c. Sugar
2 Eggs (or 1/2 cup EggBeaters)
2 tsp. Baking Powder
2 c. All-Purpose Flour (KAF)
1/2 c. Milk (I used skim)
1 tsp. Vanilla (Nielson-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste)
2 c. Blueberries, Fresh (can you use frozen?  I don't think so - the original recipe specifies fresh)

Preheat oven to 375.
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.
Mix in the baking powder.
Now you need to add the flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour and mixing well.
Add in the vanilla.
Fold in the fresh blueberries.
Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin.  (Note:  The amount of batter will come pretty close to filling up the muffin cups but don't worry, the batter won't spill over.  They dome up so pretty!)
Bake the muffins for 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  (The tops may look a little underdone.  If they aren't dark enough for you, feel free to leave them in for another minute or two.)
When the muffins are finished, let them cool for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, take the muffins out of the muffin pan and let them finish cooling on a wire rack (or you can flip the muffins out of the pan slightly so they bottom doesn't steam.)

Calories:  230 per muffin