Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins (aka: dinner)

Happy New Year!

I'm not usually one for muffins. But tonight when I saw the bag of wild blueberries in my freezer, I suddenly couldn't survive without some blueberry muffins.

As usual, I turned to Baking Illustrated: the Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker, by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. I'm not going to print out the recipe because I didn't change a thing from the original recipe, except for swapping in whole wheat pastry flour. These muffins rocked - they have 1 1/4 cups of sour cream in them, and it tastes lovely with the blueberries. The texture is nice and cakey too, even with the whole wheat pastry flour. My only complaint about the whole wheat flour is the color - these muffins just aren't very cute.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

Every time I make something with whole wheat pastry flour, I have to ask myself why I don't just use it all the time. I have never had a recipe go bad by replacing it for all purpose. This is another example. These muffins are chocolate-banana heaven. They called for all purpose, and I swapped in exactly the same amount of whole wheat pastry flour. The muffins are soft and cakey and chocolately. I made them yesterday, and then I accidentally left them out all night without wrapping them up, and they were still still moist and yummy this morning.

Chocolate Banana Muffins, modified from a recipe in the 2002 issue of Martha Stewart's Holiday Baking magazine

- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 3 ripe mashed bananas
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 cup and 2 Tbsp sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt

Oven to 375 degrees, line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin papers. Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl whisk together bananas, vanilla, buttermilk, butter, and eggs. Mix dry ingredients into wet using a wooden spoon, then fill muffin tin (I had extra batter left over - enough to make a couple more muffins.) Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick is clean with just a few crumbs.

The Easiest Biscuits in the World

I'm beginning to feel like an advertisement for this book:Baking Illustrated: the Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker, by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. Almost anytime I try something for the first time, I will turn to this book, and I'm pretty sure it has never led me astray.

This is another example. I haven't made biscuits in years, and decided to give it a try yesterday morning. When I turned to my baking bible, there were two recipes listed - one was pretty traditional, with cold butter cut into the flour. But this one was the easy version, and instead of butter, it uses only heavy cream. I was intrigued and gave them a try. They were indeed incredibly easy to make, and they were actually really good! The texture was crispy on the outside, soft and flakey on the inside. I must confess, I am not a true connaisseur of biscuits, but I can't imagine ever using another recipe (and the other folks at the breakfast table didn't seem to have any complaints either.)











Cream Biscuits, from Baking Illustrated: the Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker, by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine.

- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Oven to 425 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment.

Whisk together dry ingredients, then stir in only 1 1/4 cups of the heavy cream with a wooden spoon. When the dough comes together, dump it onto a lightly floured countertop, and then use small amounts of the remaining cream to moisten the dry bits left in the bowl. Add these to the dough and knead briefly until smooth. Pat dough to 3/4 inch thickness and cut out biscuits. Bake for about 15 minutes.



PS - I discovered that this recipe works great for dumplings in a pot of veggie soup. I halved the recipe, which worked well. I also used half-and-half in place of the cream, because that was all I had around, and it worked fine. Just make sure not to crowd the dumplings too much, or else you may end up with little under-cooked spots.

Zucchini Bread

I'm doing my best to embrace the cool weather, starting with this zucchini bread. It was sort of an odd recipe, almost savory, which made the chocolate chips a little out of place. I think if I had left them out, this bread would have just been an interesting green bread with a really nice texture. (I wish I had gotten a picture of the inside of this loaf, because it truly was green!) I won't be repeating it because it was actually a little time intensive for a "quick bread", and to be honest, when I think of zucchini bread, what I REALLY am craving is pumpkin or banana bread. I just happened to have a zucchini to use up, so here we are.
ps - Except for the addition of chocolate chips, I used the recipe word-for-word out of Baking Illustrated: the Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker, by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine.

Lemon Blueberry Bread

There has been a lot less baking going on around here lately because the weather was actually acting like summer. As a result I was spending way more time on my bike , and way less time in my kitchen. But last week, after the seventh straight day of rain, I found myself pulling out the butter, sugar, flour, and eggs again, and this bread is the result. (Luckily the sun returned today, and I just got back from a nice ride by the lake.)

Lemon Blueberry Bread

- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- zest of about 2 lemons
- 2 eggs
- 8 ounces yogurt (I happened to have fat-free Greek style at home and used that; it worked great)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups blueberries; I used frozen

Oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Mix first four ingredients together in medium bowl. In bowl of mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add lemon zest, then the eggs one at a time, and vanilla. Alternately add flour and yogurt, beginning and ending with flour. Mix in blueberries. Batter will be thick. Pour into pan and bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cover in foil part way through if cake appears to be browning too quickly. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on wire rack.

This bread (cake) is nice and lemony, slightly tart from the yogurt, and with the texture that I always hope for in a blueberry muffin. I used frozen wild blueberries, and they did the trick nicely. It keeps well for a day or two, but loses the slightly crunchy crust (my favorite part) that it has coming out of the oven.