Tag: muffins
Blue-tifulberry Muffins from Zoe Bakes

Blue-tifulberry Muffins from Zoe Bakes

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I know, I know…I already have a few showstopper blueberry muffin recipes on 3Jamigos but I just found another one!  From Zoe Bakes, her Blueberry Muffin with Crumble Topping.  The crumble and a touch of lemon sets this muffin apart.  They’re delicious and perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.  During blueberry season, which happens to be right now, I head to our farmer’s market to load up on the tiny blue orbs.  First, I eat some out of hand when I return from the market.  Then I save some for fruit salads or a favorite spinach salad with hazelnuts, and avocado dressed in a honey mustard vinaigrette.  A portion gets frozen to be enjoyed later in the year.  But ultimately, the berries end up in baked goodies- there’s Blueberry Boy Bait Cake, Blueberry Hand Pies, Blueberry Cornmeal Cobbler,  Blueberry Cornmeal Mochi Cake… I feel like Bubba Gump, you get the picture.  I’m blue without blueberries.  Search blueberries on 3jamigos.com and a plethora of recipes will pop up.

 Zoe of All Trades

If by chance you aren’t familiar with Zoe Francois, let me fangirl about her for a moment.  Zoe is based out of Minneapolis.  She started in a different career but ultimately pivoted to food, working as a pastry chef and co-writing cookbooks.  Her easy, friendly, personable style , million-dollar smile and great dessert recipes have given rise to cookbooks, videos, and a TV show.  I love her show, which is filled with great tips, techniques, and ideas.  It also highlights the folks and local businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul.  I have a soft spot for the Twin Cities having visited often (even in the winter) when Jamie lived there.  Her book, Zoe Bakes, sits on my frequent flyer bookshelf on my island and I can’t wait until her next book, Zoe’s Cookies, comes out in September.

How the Muffin Crumbles

As much as I love Hummingbird High’s Levain Bakery Blueberry Muffins, my family is crumble-crazy.  There was never a question if we would make Zoe’s muffins, the question was when.  With blueberry season in full swing, the time was now.  I brought home a quart of blueberries from my favorite purveyor, Triple Delight, and set upon making these muffins.

Make the crumble first as it needs to chill a bit, toss it in the fridge while making the batter.  The crumble is a little on the sweet side, maybe I’ll add nuts next time and a pinch of salt. It’s a classic crumble topping, butter, and brown sugar with a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon.  Work the butter in with a pastry blender or your fingers, it should look like coarse lumpy sand.  Stash it in the fridge.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and yolk along with the vanilla and combine well.  It may look slightly curdled but will smooth out after adding the dry ingredients.  Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl a couple of times during the process.  It makes a difference.

Add flour mixture with sour cream or buttermilk in two portions.  Do not overmix.  The batter will be fairly thick and stiff.   Finally, fold the blueberries into the batter by hand to avoid crushing the berries.

I love these tulip-shaped muffin tin liners but traditional cupcake papers will work too. Use an ice cream scoop (#20) to portion the batter into a muffin tin.  Sprinkle the chilled crumble equally over the batter.

Bake the muffins until golden brown on the edges.  The middle will be lighter than the edges.  Remove from oven, serve warm.  Enjoy!

While blueberries are in season make these muffins.  They can also be made with frozen blueberries.  Do not thaw, fold the frozen berries into the batter.

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Blueberry Muffins

A tender, fine crumb muffin studded with sweet blueberries and topped with a buttery crumble topping. Perfection from Zoe Bakes
Course Breakfast, Muffins, Snack
Cuisine American
Keyword blueberries, Blueberry Muffins, muffins, streusel, zoe bakes
Prep Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

Topping

  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour bleached or unbleached will work 60g
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar well packed 125g
  • 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • 4 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature 57g

Muffins

Dry Ingredients

  • 2 cups spoon and sweep 240g all-purpose flour (bleached or unbleached)* Use 210gm if using KA flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 3/8 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp kosher salt

Cream Mixture

  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter room temperature 86g
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar 150g
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar 30g
  • 1 lemon, zested
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 whole egg room temperature
  • 1 yolk room temperature

Liquid Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sour cream or buttermilk crème fraîche or yogurt work too! 135g
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries** 175g
  • 1 tbsp all-purpose flour

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare the topping by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl until it turns into uniform clumps. Refrigerate until ready to use.
  • Prepare regular muffin tins with 7 LARGE liners. (You can bake regular sized muffins by dividing it into 12)
  • Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl, set aside.
  • Cream the butter, sugars and zest together on medium speed, in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add vanilla. Add the egg and yolk, one at a time, mixing on low just until combined. It may seem a bit curdled, because it is a lot of liquid to add to that amount of butter. It will all come together in the end.
  • Add half the flour and half the sour cream. Mix on low until combined. Add the remaining flour and sour cream.
  • Toss the blueberries with flour and if using frozen berries immediately fold them into the batter with two or three gentle stirs. If you over mix, the batter will turn purple and then gray. Scoop into the muffin liners.
  • Sprinkle the topping over the muffins. Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until golden brown and a tester comes out with moist, but not wet, crumbs. If you are baking smaller muffins, bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes

*If you use King Arthur Baking all-purpose flour, your muffins will not be as soft and fluffy, because it has more protein, so use a few tablespoons less.**If you use frozen blueberries, keep them frozen until the last minute.
These muffins can be frozen. Thaw them out and reheat in a warm oven for about 10 minutes to serve.
Mango Mochi Muffins Triple M Play

Mango Mochi Muffins Triple M Play

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More Mochi Madness

One of the most popular posts on 3Jamigos is Muffin been the Mochi that Caught My Eye (Butter Mochi Muffins)  I stumbled upon the original recipe on Snixy Kitchen, a gorgeous site focused on gluten-free baking and cooking.  For good reason this recipe is popular, the muffins are chewy, dense, moist and delicious.  I decided I needed to expand my horizon and try different flavorings for the mochi muffins.  A quick search yielded an array of flavors folks have tried, ube, chocolate, and milk tea.

The Milk Tea Muffins from Match Berry Kitchen caught my eye.  I love Milk Tea, apparently, so do lots of people judging by the number of Boba places in the South Bay.  The proverbial Newton’s apple epiphany popped in my head, tea, mango, coconut, hmmm.  I thought Mango Sticky Rice, one of my favorite desserts, could I morph it into a mochi muffin?

Let’s Do This

I pulled out a box of Mango Tea I had bought in Seoul, freeze-dried mango chips from TJ’s, coconut milk and a box of Sweet Rice Flour.

The beauty of Mochi Muffins is they are REALLY easy to make.  A bowl, a spoon, or spatula, and you are in business.  You can crush the mango pieces with a rolling pin or drop it in a mini food processor or blender.  If you don’t have coconut milk you can use evaporated milk, or regular milk.  I like coconut milk, especially with mango.  I brewed a strong cup of mango tea, and combined it with coconut milk, butter, and egg.  By using mango tea, the flavor is very subtle, you could use mango juice or puree for a more pronounced flavor or fold in bits of fresh mango (baking time will be on the long side due to moisture from the fruit).  Add wet ingredients to the dry, stir a couple of times, done.  Literally, 5 minutes of prep and then into the oven.

The batter is pourable, use either a scoop or pour into buttered muffin tin cups.  Fill to within 1/8 inch from the top.  This will make approximately 8 muffins, not too many.  Garnish with coconut or with sesame seeds., both give an extra layer of texture. I used flaked coconut since I did not have shredded which I would have preferred.  Baking time is in the range of 32-35 minutes.  Shorter baking time insures a gooey, chewy texture while baking the muffins longer would make them cakier and less chewy.  Your choice.

Another gluten-free winner!

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Mango Mochi Muffins

Course Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine Asian-American
Keyword mango, Mochi, mochi muffin, muffin
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of Mochiko sweet glutinous rice flour
  • 1/2 cup of golden cane sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tbsp ground freeze-dried mango
  • 2 tablespoons or 1/8 cup of unsalted butter and a bit extra for greasing the muffin pan
  • 3 Mango flavored teabags
  • ~ 1/2 cup of coconut milk reg or light
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tablespoon of condensed milk
  • Muffin pan

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease the muffin pan with a little bit of melted butter
  • Steep tea bags in 1/2 cup of boiling water for 10 minutes then drain excess liquid from the tea bags and take them out
  • Add coconut milk until you have 3/4 cup of milk+tea.
  • Combine Mochiko, sugar, ground mango and baking powder in a large mixing bowl
  • In a separate bowl melt the unsalted butter then stir in the egg, condensed milk and coconut milk tea mixture, blend ingredients thoroughly.
  • Combine the dry and wet ingredients and whisk till the mixture has no lumps
  • Scoop or pour the mixture into the wells of the muffin pan
  • Bake in the oven for 32-35 minutes then remove and let cool for around 30 minutes before taking the muffins out of the pan

Notes

If you want the muffins to be sweeter, add more condensed milk
If you want the muffins to have a stronger tea taste, increase the number of tea bags for the steeping step
For a crispier bottom use a metal muffin pan or bake the muffins for longer
Mochi muffins are best stored at room temperature in an air-tight container or freeze and reheat.
For mango madness, add diced fresh mango to batter
Definitely try different flavors. For milk tea, use black tea bags, omit mango powder. There are an array of freeze-dried fruits available including raspberry, strawberry and blueberry.
Best Damn Banana Bread

Best Damn Banana Bread

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Bananas for Bread

Did I get your attention? Ok, it may not be the best damn banana bread recipe as there are probably millions, but it is really yummy and very easy to make!  How easy? The kids made this bread in pre-school.  They would smoosh the bananas, mash the butter and sugar together and crank the sifter, and with a little (ok, a lot) of help, stir and pour the batter into the muffin tins.  Over the years we have played with the recipe and added different nuts, chocolate chips, blueberries, dried apricots or Nutella to the batter.  It can be baked in a loaf pan or in muffin tins, your choice.  It really is simple & delicious and we have Teacher Heidi to thank for the recipe!

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4 from 3 votes

Best Damn Banana Bread

Simple and delicious banana bread from my kids' pre-school days.
Course Breads, quick breads
Cuisine American
Keyword Banana Bread
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 55 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 6 ripe bananas mashed
  • 4 beaten eggs

Dry Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp. Baking soda

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.
  • Cream butter and sugar until well blended, it does not have to be light and fluffy since you want some density to your bread. Beat in eggs one at a time.
  • Add flour mixture and bananas to butter-egg batter alternating dry ingredients with bananas, begin with third of the flour mixture, then half of the banana, third of flour, the remaining half of bananas and end with remaining dry ingredients. Honestly, in a pinch, just dump it all in at once and stir well to combine completely. Should be fine.
  • For muffins, line 2-12 cup muffin tins with paper liners or butter and flour cups. Fill about 2/3 full. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
  • For loaf bread, use 2 buttered and floured 9x5 loaf pans and fill equally with batter. Bake 45-55 minutes or until tester comes out clean. The top of bread will be fairly dark when done. Cover top with tin foil if the bread begins to brown too much. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
  • Makes 2 loaves or 2 dozen muffins

Notes

Be creative! Add 1/2 cup chocolate chips to batter and/or chopped toasted pecans or fresh blueberries. For the bread in the photos, 3 heaping teaspoonfuls of Nutella were plopped and swirled into the batter before baking. Recipe can be halved.