I’d like everyone to know how dedicated I am to this blog. HOW dedicated, you ask? Dedicated enough to turn my oven on to 400 degrees, when my kitchen is already 90 degrees, just to make muffins to show to you. That, my friends, is dedication. See? And this is before I turned the oven on!
But, I have to admit, it was kind of worth it. These muffins are pretty tasty; they are surprisingly light and have a good texture to them – not too cakey or dense. Plus I loaded them up with enough blueberries to choke a horse. Assuming horses eat blueberries? I mean, I suppose they do, or would, if someone gave them some. In which case, they’d choke on these muffins.
I’ve been looking for something else to make with blueberries besides ghetto-cobbler [for real, last time I made cobbler, I didn't have flour, so I doctored some pancake mix and used that!] and realized that duh – muffins. Especially since I’ve had two over-priced muffins from the eateries in my office building as of late [I'm looking at you, Au Bon Pain]. So I searched the trusty allrecipes.com for a recipe that looked like what I wanted. Of course, me being me, I ended up with something entirely different.
The recipe I ended up making used sour cream, which intrigued me since I’ve liked using cream cheese and buttermilk in baked goods previously. So, off to the kitchen I went, with the recipe in hand. I did make a few alterations to the recipe, and still think there could be something else added for extra flavor – cardamom, maybe? – but regardless, they were worth the effort and gone very quickly.
Blueberry Cream Muffins
(my changes in bold)
2 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries
Zest and juice of one lemon
Preheat oven to 400. Zest and juice the lemon. Add to the blueberries. Beat eggs, gradually add both types of sugar. Then add the vanilla and oil. Once that’s all mixed, add in the sour cream. Then add the dry ingredients. Last, gently fold in the blueberries.
Yes, I know that the instructions I wrote are much simpler than the ones in the original recipe. I’m okay with that; while I’m sure there are a number of reasons for all the complicated mixing, I like my way just fine. Plus, 90 degrees in my kitchen.
Look at those! Bursting with blueberries. I probably did go a bit overboard, and next time would use 1.5 cups, but still. Blueberries baked into anything make me happy, and these muffins had plenty of that.
I can't think of anything funny to say about blueberries.
Cake is actually the best part of a cupcake.
With all due respect to my dear co-blogger, frosting is most certainly not the best part of a cupcake. They don’t call it a frostingcake, do they? Or a cupfrosting? No! Cup. Cake. Clearly, cake wins.
And let me tell you, this cake wins everything. It’s all those cliche things people always say about cake: it’s moist! It’s rich! It’s delicious! It has a delicate crumb! [What does that even mean? I always hear it being used in conjunction with cakes. Maybe I'm too much of a plebeian to get it?]
But I digress. This cake is really good. The recipe is courtesy of the same lady that gave me the pound cake recipe. I’m pretty sure she’s a baking genius.
I have to admit, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it was pretty damn close:
2 & ½ Cups of sifted flour
1 & ½ Cups of sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of coco
1 cup of buttermilk
1 & 1/2cups of Oil or (Soft Butter)
1 teaspoon of vinegar
2 eggs
1 ounce of Red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vanilla flavor
Preheat oven to 350. Cream together sugar and oil or (butter). Add eggs, beat well. Sift together flour, salt, and soda (set aside). Mix together food coloring, vinegar, and coco. Add to sugar and oil mixture. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Blend well. Pour batter into two, well greased and floured pans, or spray with non-stick oil. Bake for 35 minutes. Cool.
I, of course, had to make cupcakes instead of cake. I always feel pressured when I make cake; that it has to rise perfectly, and there always seems to be so much of it. Cupcakes are way less pressure. Plus, they’re easier to carry to work, which is why I made them in the first place — it was my turn to bake for the department birthdays.
The only other change I made was to scale back a bit on the fat in the recipe. I used butter, but I only used two sticks [only! my husband was horrified and intrigued at having to take out two sticks of butter for me before I got home from work]. I also used slightly less sugar than listed, but didn’t cut back too much, since I wasn’t sure how that’d affect the taste. I feel like I could cut it by maybe a third of a cup and not have the taste affected too much.
See? I even spelled out “happy birthday” in little candy pieces. How precious am I? I also made one for the husband, because he looked all sad face at the thought of me bringing all the cupcakes to work. Yes, that is store bought frosting. Cream cheese frosting, which I’ve heard some people like on this cake and other people think is blasphemy. It works for me though, because I feel like it cuts some of the sweetness of the cake.
But seriously people, do yourself a favor and make this cake, in whatever form you want. Look at how beautiful it is!
