Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Muffins, anyone?

I have to say, muffins are probably one of the best breakfast foods out there. No joke, the muffins can take on those english muffins any day of the week. That's why I was pretty excited to learn that not only would we be having an actual lab the very first day of my baking class, but we'd be making blueberry muffins!! That's SUCH a good first lab...something nice and familiar in a big intimidating baking class...and your very first hands-on cooking class. If it was something like pate-a-choux (there will be a later post on that, don't worry), I'd probably run out of the room crying...you can't throw weird French terms at me on the first day!


So I came home and told my mom all about the muffins. I didn't have any for her to try...One, because she doesn't even LIKE blueberry muffins, and two...because I ate both of mine... What? Don't look at me like that, I was HUNGRY. But I did promise my mom I'd make muffins of the same recipe, only with chocolate chips instead of blueberries.

So here they are...or at least one of them is:




Ta Da!! I know, it looks delish, right? And the creative stylings with the props was done especially by my mom (she's pretty crafty...and artistic. As you can see in her photography). No, I did not use that exact chocolate in the muffins...but that was the only chocolate we had, seeing as I used the rest of our chocolate chips for these babies. Would you like the recipe?


Here it is:


Now, please note that the recipe calls for pastry flour, but all purpose flour works just as well. That's what I used in these specific muffins. Also note that the recipe has weight measurements, as my instructor Judy tells us that this is the most accurate way of measuring. Please feel free to let me know if you'd like me to convert it to cups for you.


Pastry flour 8 1/2 oz.
Baking powder 2 tsp.
Salt 3/4 tsp.
Sugar 6 oz.


Vegetable Oil 2 oz.
Melted Butter 1 1/2 oz.
Eggs 3 oz.
Milk 5 oz.


Now, this recipe says to use 4 oz. of blueberries, and I guess if you wanted you could use 4 oz. of chocolate chips...but I just put as many as I want! There's no such thing as too much chocolate, right? Right!


Now, Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Whisk together oil and melted butter, then whisk into the eggs and milk.
Using a rubber spatula, fold together the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.
Add the chocolate chips (or blueberries if you'd like) when the batter is mixed halfway. Only mix a few times, just so the liquid is incorporated into the dry- batter should be rough and lumpy.


And finally, bake at 400 degrees for approximately 18-28 minutes, depending on the size of the muffins.


And, voila! You have muffin yummy goodness! Man, it's almost midnight and I'm ALREADY ready for breakfast!

1 comment: