Irish Soda Bread Muffins

This is much beloved recipe from my heavily Irish-laden family. My mom used to make these all the time as do I- they are not just for St. Patty's. Top them with Irish Kerrygold butter or preserves. Go mbeanni dia duit!

IRISH SODA BREAD MUFFINS:
Ingredients:
-2 c flour
-3 Tbsp. sugar
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 tsp. baking powder
-1 Tbsp caraway seeds (optional)
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/4 c cold butter
-3/4 cup raisins (optional)
-1 c buttermilk
-1 egg
Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees/ Place first six ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or fork, or hands) until batter resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk and egg. Stir into crumb mixture. Stir in raisins. Spoon dough into greased muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes.
* If you have time to allow the ingredients to come to room temperature, you will enjoy a lighter muffin.

Blueberry muffins

Blueberry Muffins Recipe
I got this recipe here: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/blueberry_muffins/

Ingredients
3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1 Tbsp flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

Method
1 Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2 Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3 In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the grated lemon peel.

4 Beat in one third of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in a third of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat. Fold in the berries. If you are using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour.

5 Use standard 12-muffin muffin tins. Coat each muffin cup lightly with olive oil or grapeseed oil using a pastry brush, or with a little butter. Or use one of those convenient vegetable oil sprays. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick (we use a thin bamboo skewer) to make sure the centers of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

Makes 12-16 muffins.


** Ok, so I had to make a few substitutions because I decided to make these at about midnight the night before our yard sale. Here is what I did and some issues I had.

a. I didn't have 12 oz of plain yogurt so I subbed with what I had... strawberry cheesecake yoplait yogurt.

b. I also didn't have any fresh lemons. But I did have oranges. So in went a tsp of orange zest.

c. After having mixed everything in by thirds, which I thought weird since you have to be careful not to overmix muffins, it seemed very thick and I kinda freaked that I had over done it. I baked them anyway.

d. They barely rose I might add.

e. We used our fresh picked blueberries.

f. DELICIOUS! Not too sweet. Very yummy and moist. These were hands down THE best muffins I've ever had.

Good luck!

Doughnut Muffins

Hello again everyone! I am so ready for fall food! This is not necessarily a fall food but I had to make some yesterday for Brett because he had to bring breakfast to his office and he begged me to make these. They are simple and oh so yummy so I thought I would share. I didn't take pictures last night but they are so simple you shouldn't need them. Enjoy!

1/3 C. canola oil
1/2 C. sugar
1 egg
1/2 C. milk
1 1/2 C. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 C. butter, melted
1/2 C. sugar + 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Cream oil, sugar, and egg. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Turn into greased muffin tin and bake 20-25 min. Immediately remove from tins. Roll in melted butter (or I prefer to brush with a pastry brush) and then roll in cinnamon sugar (or as I prefer, sprinkle it evenly from a spoon so that your mixture lasts longer without butter clumping it up,) EAT!!!!

Hope Y'All Aren't Sick of Pumpkins Yet!

Hi, everyone! My name is Heather. I also go by Heathie, particularly with the younger crowd--4- and 5-year-olds who can't pronounce their 'R' sounds. I'm glad to be part of this blog because I need to start cooking better! My husband is incredibly picky. Basically if it has sauce or vegetables, he won't eat it. Thus, a lot of my posts will be foods for picky eaters (except for the days he's not home; those days, we eat well. Hee hee!).

I know Madeline already did a recipe for Pumpkin Muffins. I totally forgot about it last night when I was looking for a pumpkin muffin recipe, and I think it would have been more what I was looking for than the one I came up with. So I'll probably use it next time. The following recipe, though, is one I tweaked to try to make it more "healthy." I used some honey, but ran out so I also used some brown sugar. I like it better in pumpkin things than white sugar. But honestly, sugar is sugar and it all surges through the blood stream the same way. Without further ado, here is my version of Pumpkin Muffins:

In a large bowl, combine
1 1/3 C Pumpkin Puree
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1/2 C Honey
2 Eggs
1/2 + 1/8 C oil (I'm no good at fractions, so I didn't bother consolidating those amounts into one number...)

The resulting sludge will look something like this.

In a smaller bowl combine

1 1/2 C Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Ground Cloves

1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1/8 tsp Ground Ginger

Add the dry mixture to the wet, and mix well.

Recipe fills 12 regular size muffin cups almost completely.

Bake at 400 F for 16-20 minutes.

I was actually looking to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, but half way through realized I was out of chocolate chips. These muffins aren't really chewy-gooey enough for chocolate chips anyway. But I think they make a good breakfast muffin to be enjoyed with scrambled eggs and fruit, which is just what we had for breakfast this morning!

Pumpkins Muffins

What better time to enjoy pumpkin then baking with it. I love everything pumpkin and my daughter is quickly  following in my footsteps. She had a friend over last week and wanted to make something in the kitchen so, they both sat on the counter and made these muffins (with my help of course). I let them do as much as possible. (If you notice, the recipe is really kid friendly). The only change we made was to make them mini muffins instead of regular. They turned out soft, chewy, and perfect. These muffins are a great snack or perfect for breakfast with fruit and yogurt.

  I decided to take a cookbook from my daughter's book shelf today :). Other than the fact that I love Paula Dean, it made a perfect first cookbook for my little girl. A bonus is that everything is all drawn out in pictures. She really likes to match up the pictures with the ingredients and equipment.

They poured in the batter all the way to the top (which I think they did a good job)

and the muffins turned out just right.

*Cooking Tip- If you don't have enough batter to fill the rest of the muffin pan, fill the remainding slots with water to ensure the life of your pan.

Ingredients and directions for Pumpkin Muffins:

All-purpose flour-2 cups

Baking Soda-1 teaspoon

Salt- 1/2 teaspoon

Cinnimon- 1 teaspoon

Allspice- 1/4 teaspoon

Light brown sugar- 3/4 cup

Molasses- 3 Tablespoons

Canola Oil- 1/4 cup

Eggs 2

Pumpkin Puree- 15 oz.

Vanilla- 1 teaspoon

*Buttermilk- 3/4 cup

Directions:

Pre-Heat Oven 400 degrees. Spray muffin tin or line with cups

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and all spice.

In separate bowl, whisk together brown sugar, molasses, oil, eggs, pumpkin, vanilla and buttermilk.
Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir together just until combined (Batter should be lumpy).
Laddle batter into muffin cups (tap pan on the counter to make sure you get all of the air bubbles out)
Bake for 20 mintues (the time was the same for our mini muffins)
Cool on wire rack

* Buttermilk substitute- One Tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice and enough milk to make one cup of sour milk (let it stand for at least 5 minutes to take effect).

Food Storage Items:

Flour, Baking Soda, Salt, Light brown sugar, Molasses, Canola Oil, Pumpkin Puree,and Vanilla

The Season for Blueberris

For more on pick-your-own go to: http://www.pickyourown.org

It is that time of season when berries are ready to harvest. In June we had Strawberries and this month in Oregon the season for Boysenberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Gooseberries, and Blueberries and ready to for you to use as you please and at a good price. Today we are picking our own blueberries at a local blueberry nursery and making blueberry muffins with our master muffin mix. Hope you enjoy!

Not only was it National Blueberry Muffin Day, but National Your Own Blueberries and that is just what I did with my family. We selected a day and I called various pick-your-own nurseries and we choose Anderson's Blues in Corvallis, OR. I was a large nursery that produced over 10 different varieties of blueberries. They encouraged you to sample and choose as you desired. It was wonderful and a good price. Even though they provided buckets they were happy to weigh the baskets we had. When we were done, we were given the blueberries in a long open box at the price of $1.25 per pound. It was a great expedience to go to with my husband and our little girl who mostly sampled her way through the process. For more information about nurseries in your area go to the web address at the top of this post. (all photos taken by Madeline)


Here are some Picking and Storing tips from Pickyourown.org:

• Select plump, full blueberries with a light gray-blue color. A berry with any hint of red isn't fully ripened.
• White and green colored blueberries will not ripen after they are picked; while blueberries that have already turned purple, red or blue-ish usually DO ripen after they are picked (if they are kept at room temperature to ripen).
  
• Since blueberries hang on the bushes in bunches a but like grapes do, the easiest and fastest way to pick them is hold your bucket under them in one hand and with your other hand, cup a ripe bunch and gently rub them with your fingers. The ripe berries will drop into your bucket, while the unripe ones will remain attached to the bush.

(Text taken from Pickyourown.org)


Storing:

• Once picked, don't place the berries, still warm from the sun, in a closed bag or container. Leave the container open so moisture doesn't form in the container.
• Don't wash berries until just before using to prevent berries from becoming mushy.
  
• Chill berries soon after picking to increase shelf life. If refrigerated, fresh-picked blueberries will keep 10 to 14 days.
  
• Freeze berries in freezer containers without washing to keep the skins from toughening. Place berries one layer deep. Freeze, then pour the frozen berries into freezer containers. Because unwashed blueberries freeze individually, they can be easily poured from containers in desired amounts. Remember both frozen and fresh berries should be rinsed and drained just before serving. Just before using, wash the berries in cold water.

(Text taken from Pickyourown.org)

Cooking Tip#1
Spray inside the muffin liners with cooking spray to allow muffin (or cupcakes) to release as a whole. Also cupcake pans need to be filled to preserve their lifetime use. It is best to fill any empty spots with water.


To get Started with blueberry muffins, I wanted to share the master mix suggestion for those that like to prepare muffins or need to prepare muffins for very large groups (Especially Jumbo muffins). This master mix is a great way to have your own mix handy for using. Once you have the master mix, you can create any kind of muffins you want from then on out.

Master Muffin Mix
8 Cups of Flour
3 Cups of Sugar
3 Tablespoons of Baking Powder
2 Teaspoons of Salt
2 Teaspoons of Ground Cinnamon (optional)
2 Teaspoons of Ground Nutmeg (Optional)

Mix thoroughly together
This will last 6-8 months and make 11 cups of mix.


Cooking Tip #2
When making muffins, separate dry ingredients from liquid. Put all the liquid ingredients at the same time into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir with a spoon. Stir lightly just until moistened to create a more fluffy batter. Muffin batter should always appear lumpy.

For Melt in Your Mouth Muffins
Take 2 and 3/4 Cups of Master Muffin Mix
1 egg (beaten)
1 cup of buttermilk (or regular)
1/2 cup of cooking oil

Baking Definition # 1
Fold- To fold one mixture into another is to lightly stir until it comes together (not always thoroughly mixed) This concludes the next step- "fold your muffin mix together and then fold your blueberries into the batter".



Cooking tips #3 and #4
The tricks I have learned for making the perfect muffin (or cupcake) is to use a lower heat and fill the batter up to the top of the liner. Although most recipes say to use a high heat of 400 to 425 degrees. I would try 15 degrees lower and they never came out brown and cooked evenly.


By filling them up to the top, it will create a bigger "mushroom" shaped top.



Baking Definition # 2
Streusel- Although streuel refers to a pastry it is also a crumbled topping for making muffins and cupcakes. When you mix flour, brown sugar and chilled soft butter, rake a fork through it and it will make a crumbled topping to sprinkle a top your batter before baking. It is a great way to add a sweet buttery flavor to your recipe.


Cooking tip # 5
When making streusel, make sure your butter is a cold. If it is too warm is will just form a dough. But no worries, if this happens just place pieces of that sugary dough a top your batter anyway. Like I did here :)




They will still turn out perfect!

*

What is your favorite berry or muffin you enjoy during the summer?