In the Kitchen

I am starting a new weekly post. They will be every Friday and it is called "In the Kitchen" (obviously). I will be posting about something I have made, be it baking or cooking. I decided to do this because cooking/baking is a big part of being a stay-at-home mom (and really anyone, as we all need to eat). I will post about things that I make often, new recipes, and perhaps some tips. I do not pretend to be an excellent chef or anything, but my food does generally taste good. I am well aware of my deficiencies, such as being not very crafty, etc.  I have always loved to bake and cook and it seems to be one of my talents. I am, however, not so great at the whole presentation thing (mostly not so good at decorating cookies, frosting cupcakes, etc.). 

Let's get started!

Throughout this post remember that my camera is a regular old point and shoot as explained in this post.

I made blueberry muffins last night so we could have them for breakfast this morning (no, I am not normally this wonderful of a wife and do not make delectable treats for breakfast on a daily basis). I have been craving blueberry muffins after pinning a recipe on pinterest. I did not make that recipe though as I did not have quite enough blueberries and it had oil in the recipe and I always cringe away from oil. So, I pulled out my handy dandy Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. You might be skeptical about recipes from a Harry Potter cookbook, but everything I have made out of that book has been delicious, plus it tells me where the food was mentioned in which Harry Potter book (I am a big Harry Potter fan). Needless to say, I love my Harry Potter Cookbook.

OK, back to baking. There is a blueberry muffin recipe in the Mrs. Weasley section of the cookbook and here it is:

Oversized Blueberry Muffins with Crunchy Tops
You will need:
2 cups all-purpose flour                        
2 teaspoons baking soda                      
1/4 teaspoon salt                                    
2 large eggs, at room temperature                
1 cup granulated sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 pint (2 cups) blueberries, washed and well drained
turbinado sugar for sprinkling

I did not have any Turbinado sugar, so I went back to that pinterest recipe and looked at those toppings. One was a lemon-sugar topping and the other streusel topping (I made both). You can find those toppings here.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (or put liners in) a muffin pan. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

light and fluffy!

2. In a large mixing bowl (I used my standing KitchenAid mixer), whisk/beat eggs until smooth. Whisk/beat in the sugar and continue whisking/beating until light and fluffy. The whisking refers to doing it by hand, but I highly recommend using a mixer because it takes awhile to get the egg/sugar mixture light and fluffy. Drizzle in the melted butter while whisking/beating vigorously. Whisk/beat in the lemon zest and  vanilla.



Fold in the flour mixture and sour cream alternately, beginning and ending with flour. I used half sour cream, half plain yoghurt, mostly because I did not want to use a full cup of each. Sour cream and plain yoghurt are good replacements for each other in baking recipes.  The batter will be quite stiff. Fold in the blueberries.

3. Spoon batter into muffin pan (they will fill to the rim). Sprinkle tops with turbinado sugar or any other topping you prefer. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through the baking time, until the tops are golden brown.

                         

These muffins were so tasty. They were a little on the sweet side, though that is not a bad thing. I would not call these particularly healthy or anything, but they sure did taste good!

 Let me know how you liked this post and if you happen to make these muffins let me know how they turned out (I am slightly desperate for comments :) ).