Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins

Recipe: Browned Butter Blueberry Muffins

Source: http://joythebaker.com/2009/07/browned-butter-blueberry-muffins/

Time: 65 minutes, includes cooling time

Ease: 5

Taste: 10

Leftover Value: 10

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep in the Strainer!

I want to make something perfectly clear before I begin.  I have never, ever been into blueberry muffins.  I have never, ever been into muffins that didn't involve chocolate chips throughout.

Yet.

These muffins, oh my, these muffins.  They make me forget all about, what were they again? 

I found Joy the Baker through who else but the Pioneer Woman?  And I'm so happy I did.  This girl knows her stuff, and every one of her recipes I have made has been fantastic.

The first time I made these I had no idea what it meant to brown butter, so I winged it.  I'm pretty sure I failed miserably, because since then I have really learned what it means to brown butter.  The muffins hadn't suffered too much, because they were still edible and delicious.  But perhaps they were even more delicious the second and third time I made them with true blue, er...browned butter. 

Here is what Ms. Joy tells us to do: "Keep an eye on the butter.  It will melt, froth, and begin to crackle....The crackling will subside and butter will begin to brown fairly quickly.  Remove from heat when butter solids become a medium brown color and butter smells slightly nutty,"

Wha...wha...what??

First of all, the crackling is hardly "crackling".  From this term, I'm expecting a Rice Krispies snap-CRACKLE-pop sound.  Not quite.  This sound is slightly reminiscent of what...wait for it....butter sounds like in a frying pan.  However, there does reach a point where there is no longer any sound coming from the butter.  I used this the gauge when my brown butter was close to done.

Another issue I have is that no matter the lighting of the kitchen or the coloring of the pan, it is pretty difficult to determine that the butter has officially become brown.  This leads me to wonder things like, How brown is too brown?  and  Did the butter actually change color, or has it looked this way the entire time?

Whether I got it right each time or not, I will say this, this batter is so divine I could skip the baking step, grab a spoon, and call it quits right there.

Thankfully, I have learned to exercise restraint and times have not gotten that desperate.

I love the topping on these muffins, after all, what is there to dislike about the crunchy buttery delight that flour, butter, and sugar make when mixed together?

As I said before, baked goods with fruit aren't normally my thing, but these are like vanilla cake dressed up as something a little healthier. 

I don't even mind the purple stuff at the bottom.*

*Note: Every time I have made these I have used fresh frozen blueberries and it tastes darn good.  Translation: I buy blueberries in bulk, freeze them, and then can make these muffins whenever I want.  

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins...the way they should be

Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Source: The Minimalist Baker
http://minimalistbaker.com/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-muffins/
Time: 40 minutes
Ease: 2
Taste: 5
Leftover Value: 5
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain*

*With my adjustments, it becomes Keep it in the Strainer!

During fall, I jump on the pumpkin bandwagon just like the rest of the world.*  In fact, you might remember how I became a little obsessive with pumpkins last year.  This year, time hasn't lent itself for me to make my own pumpkin puree.

*Note: Except for Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte (currently being trendily called "PSL").  For some reason, I not only dislike the PSL, I strongly dislike it.  I drink pumpkin coffee and lattes other places, but my beloved Starbucks has not met with my satisfaction on this one.*

*Note to the note: I'm really sorry about this.  Please don't judge me.


The season is still young, yet this unfortunate lack of time means that I've been using this stuff:

I've been bookmarking and dog earring tons of pumpkin recipes from magazines and the bazillion blogs that I follow.  I've also been concocting a few of my own--hello, pumpkin scones!

My first pumpkin choice came out of necessity.  There was nothing to eat for breakfast in my house and I decided chocolate chip pumpkin muffins would be the perfect choice.

The blog I got the recipe from is one I started following recently.  While it was obvious before she even stated it that these are "vegan" muffins, I knew I would be making adjustments so that these muffins would work in my normal world kitchen.

For example, she uses a "flax egg" which is made from flax seed meal and water.  Well, flax seed meal is expensive, and I happen to always, always have eggs on hand.

Therefore, adjustment to the recipe #1: "flax egg" replaced with chicken egg.

I have had these dainty measuring cups hanging around in my kitchen for years now.  I bought them a little before I started the Orange Strainer but never had the nerve to dirty them.  Then the dust in my kitchen found them and I decided they would be better used measuring food than measuring the dust.

The second adjustment to this recipe came right after the first.  It called for almond milk with 1 T of lemon juice which is basically just homemade buttermilk, except for the fact that they are using almond milk.

Are you confused?   Because I certainly am.

I used 1% milk to make buttermilk.

Oh boy.

Next, making sure that each of my four dainty cups was able to be used for this recipe, some brown sugar needed to be thrown in.  So far, the only normal part of the recipe.

If you're feeling particularly pretentious, grab your grape seed oil (seriously?) and pour in 2 T.

Since I can't imagine grape seed oil truly making a world of a difference in pumpkin muffins, I went with the good old fashioned canola oil that was hiding under my sink.

Add a splash of vanilla.  Whisk together everything you've put in so far.  Then sprinkle in the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Whisk again until the mixture looks like this:

Now for the adjustment to this recipe that not only saves money, it actually makes it taste better.  The recipe calls for what I call a 50/50 flour mixture.  Meaning, you're trying a little bit to be healthy by using whole wheat flour, but you're also being a little naughty by using, gasp, white flour.

I've tried it this way, and it gives the muffins a deliciously cardboard type flavor.

Yum?

No.  

Exactly.

Swap out the 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour for more white flour.  Save the whole wheat nonsense for another recipe on another day.  Your taste buds will thank me.  

Regardless what kind of flour you choose to use, sift the flour directly into the pumpkin mixture.  This is awesome because it leaves you only using one mixing bowl.  (Not counting the sifter, the measuring cups, and measuring spoons).

Toss in 1/3 cups of chocolate chips.  I only had mini chocolate chips, so that's what I used.  Personally, I would prefer the regular sized ones.  

Also, I personally wanted more than 1/3 cup of chocolate chip as you can see by my cup which I filled to overflowing.

I used an ice cream scoop to fill my muffin cups.  The first time I did only one scoop and managed to fill 18 cups.  I wasn't too happy with their size.

Nothing says muffin like a muffin top, which sadly, this is lacking.

My second time around I filled the cups with a scoop and a half, filling only 12 muffin cups.  Then I did this:

You really can't have chocolate chip muffins, even if pumpkin is the main attraction, without a healthy sprinkling of chocolate chips on top.

Much better.  I think using the mini chocolate chips here makes for a much more inviting muffin.

With my adjustments, these muffins were worthwhile.  They were still not drop everything you're doing and do the happy dance delicious, but definitely worth making again.

Blueberries and Sour Cream

Recipe: Wild Blueberry-Sour Cream Muffins
Source: The Old Farmer's Almanac: Everyday Recipes
Time: 30 minutes total
Ease: 2
Taste: 8
Leftover Value: 10
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the strainer!

I'm supposed to go blueberry picking at some point this summer.  I had hoped to have fresh blueberries hand picked with love from a local farm for the first time I made this recipe.  Unfortunately, I had to go with farm fresh blueberries packaged up at our local farmer's market instead.

Same thing, they just weren't picked with love.

This recipe is fantastic.  But then again, what recipe including sour cream isn't fantastic?  It gives that perfect amount of moisture to any baked delight.

And to think that I wrinkled my nose to sour cream during my years as a youngster.

What I particularly love about the page this recipe is found on is that on the opposite page there is a section that gives a formula for making "Muffins As You Like Them".  So, you could choose to make an awesome recipe like the Wild Blueberry-Sour Cream Muffins, or you could create your own masterpiece of a muffin recipe.

More to come on that later, perhaps.

The recipe for the blueberry muffins was simple and quick to do.  If you're being leisurely, perhaps it could take you 45 minutes total, but being leisurely is totally overrated for me.

The recipe said it yields 12 muffins.  I made 12 muffins, plus had enough batter left over to make about 12 mini muffins.

Mini muffins are good.  They have less calories, even if you end up eating exactly 10 zillion of them, like I did.

Shhh, that's our little secret.