I’m not a fan of muffins but if it is blueberry muffins, I wouldn’t mind. 
Maybe it’s the colour or the taste or the spongy moistness about blueberry muffins.
Recently, Yang’s cousin and mother got a recipe for muffins and baked some for us to try. It got me interested. I went online to look for blueberry muffin recipes, read up quite a bit and then decided on one which looked the most promising.
I borrowed my mother in-law’s muffin trays and tried out the new recipe this afternoon. It turned out to be a great success. It was fragrant, moist, tasty and moderately light. Here’s the recipe (slightly modified to suit my tastebuds)
Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients (makes about 24 small muffins):
Mixture A
- plain flour / self-raising flour (2 cups)
- baking powder (1 tbsp) – if plain flour is used
- baking soda (1 tsp)
- salt (1/2 tsp)
- cinnamon powder (1 tsp)
Mixture B
- butter (3/4 of 250g block) – softened;
- sugar (3/4 cup) – I like it not too sweet. Add 1 cup if you prefer sweeter muffins
- eggs (2 large)
- plain yoghurt (1.5 cup)
Others
- fresh blueberries (1-1.5 cups) – 1 small tub from Cold Storage will do! If frozen blueberries are used, do give them a light coat of plain flour before adding into the batter. This is to prevent them from sinking to the bottom.
- sliced almonds (1/2 cup or as desired)
- Cinnamon sugar (optional)
Method:
- Line muffin trays with paper muffin liners.
- Oven: prepare middle lower rack and preheat to 190 degree celsius.
- Sift dry mixture A together into a bowl. Set aside.
- In another large mixing bowl, use an electric hand-held mixer to beat butter and sugar together until fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each one is incorporated.
- Add half of mixture A + 1/3 yoghurt and fold in (with a spoon) until just incorporated. Do not over mix it. (It’s ok to see some flour)
- Add a quarter of mixture A + 1/3 yoghurt and fold in until just incorporated. Do not over mix it. (It’s ok to see some flour)
- Add the remaining mixture A and remaining yoghurt and fold in until just incorporated. Avoid tendency to mix until batter is smooth! Some traces of of flour is fine.
- Gently fold in the blueberries and sliced almonds. Batter should be quite thick now.
- Scoop the batter to fill 3/4 of each muffin liner. (It is easier to use another spoon to help unload the sticky batter into the muffin cups)
- Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of each muffin. (optional)
- Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Test by poking with a toothpick to see if any batter sticks to it after taking it out. Once the toothpick is clean, the muffin is done.
- Set aside to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tray and serve warm (with Hershey’s chocolate syrup as desired).
Yums!
Hi Matt,
What a coincidence ya. Thanks for the compliment even though you haven’t tasted any! Guess what, i’m going to give banana muffin a shot too.
I could probably really go for banana muffins, though I’ve never eaten them. But since you mention bananas, how do you and Yang like pancakes? I eat them rarely—about as frequently as muffins, I’d say, but that’s mainly because I’m not much of a breakfast person. However, on occasion—seemingly out from nowhere—I develop a serious craving for them (oh, and for French toast, which is probably my favorite).
Anyway, I have a good friend who once made some banana pancakes for me years and years ago. I’ve not had them before or since, but they were marvelous in a way I’d suspect would lend itself well to muffins. I’m not sure I’m willing to try to bake pancakes—or muffins—myself, based on a rather unfortunate attempt I’d made when I was 7-years old which I don’t think I’ve gotten over yet. :)
You know, Yang has developed a craving for Mcdonald’s hotcakes eversince he got to know me. There was a time when he simply wanted to have hotcakes for breakfast 3 times in a week! For me, i’m developing a phobia towards hotcakes now. Hmm, actually, it is more of a phobia towards Mcdonald’s than anything.
Just a few hours ago, he was suggesting having homemade pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. Hee hee. Oh yah, did your friend blend the banana into a paste first before mixing it into the pancake batter or did he/she simply add slices of banana into the batter? The banana muffin recipe requires the bananas to be blended.
Can share that unfortunate event when you were seven? :D
If I remember correctly he cut the banana in thin slices and stirred them into the mix he’d prepared. At the time, I didn’t expect much, but it really, really turned out great. Though, for whatever reason I’ve yet to have them again.
(Another coincidence: Last night my friend Chuck and I stopped in at a restaurant chain known as Steak ‘n Shake, primarily a 24/7 restaurant with a hip 50s diner décor. I am a vanilla milkshake freak, so I knew exactly what I’d wanted, but I’d noticed that for $0.39 extra you could add pureed fruits or candies of your choice. I’ve never gone for those, but given the conversation here, I decided to give it a try. I chose—wait for it—bananas! Delicious!)
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m stricken with an odd physical illness when near McDonald’s restaurants. During my late teenage years many of the McDonald’s in the Midwest remodeled and changed their color scheme to some putrid combination of sickly greens, jaundice yellows, and pale blues. As if the aesthetic was not enough to induce flu-like symptoms among the patrons, the smell of the restaurants too became unbearable—to me at least. It even made me look at the food differently! Interior designs and re-designs have come and gone, but ever since then I’ve avoided them like the very plague they appear to channel. Of course I exaggerate, but I can’t help but feel a bit depressed when forced to dine there.
I’m pleased to discover that the McDonald’s restaurants in Singapore are much more pleasant, though I never decided to give them a go while in town. Maybe I will next time, just for grins. I find the breakfast menu much more palatable—practically the only time I ever even remotely consider going.
Regarding my childhood attempt at pancakes, I again exaggerate a bit as it isn’t as tragic as I let on. I had woken from bed quite early one Saturday morning, and instead of camping in front of the T.V to watch Saturday morning cartoons until early afternoon, I began to feel adventurous. I’d decided that instead of relying on my mother for breakfast, I’d fix it myself, and her, too, if she wanted. So I broke out the pancake mix, milk, and eggs just as I’d witnessed my mother do countless times before, and soon I was in business. Mix, mix, mix away I did ever so diligently until I was left with a satisfactory consistency. Everything appeared okay until it was time to cook the suckers, and immediately I’d created a cataclysmic mess when I poured a portion of the mix into the piping hot skillet and, well, missed the skillet. Chaos ensued.
It felt as if I’d aged several years before I’d finally cleaned up the mess and started anew. More misfortune followed: several efforts met their untimely demise in the frying pan while young, mild-mannered Matthew struggled to come up with a product that wasn’t either horribly pasty or fried like crispy kindling. By the time I felt I’d gotten the hang of it, there was zero pancake mix, half an egg yolk dangling uneasily from the kitchen counter toward the floor, and a swallow of milk. Oh, and nary an edible pancake to eat, too. It was about that time I pledged to give up on pancakes for good. :)
wat a big dog
How unfortunate to go through such odds when what you wanted was just to whip up some pancakes! If only you had succeeded the first time like what I did for the blueberry muffins…it gives me the courage to try other recipes.
I have developed a tad phobia for Mcdonald’s food these days…however, it is true that some of its outlets here have a pleasant ambience which provide a conducive environment for me to do marking when discipline is a problem at home. :)
Ya, bananas and vanilla milk shake go very well together. Remember Doreen my bride’s maid? She’s a great fan of vanilla milkshake with sliced banana or ice-cream. :)
After an experimentation on banana muffins, I decided it was important to change the wording in this blueberry muffin recipe. Instead of ’stirring in’ the flour mixture into the butter mixture, ‘folding in’ should be the way. It would help the muffin rise better. :)
I’ll tell you what, Ling, I’ll share your recipe with my mother and convince her to bake some muffins. I’ll watch her closely and perhaps I’ll be able get over my baking phobia. Then again, if they’re too good, I might feel discouraged and simply force her to do the work every time!
And of course I remember Doreen, lovely lady that she is. How is she these days?
It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been less adventurous in my choices of deserts. All my life I’ve pretty much been just a vanilla milkshake guy, foregoing cakes, traditional ice creams, and pies except on very special occasions. However, the stuff I tried in Singapore was so good that I’m beginning to yearn for different, more exotic deserts. It’s too bad I didn’t go for this stuff when I was younger and far more able to work off the extra weight!
That’s quite the coincidence—I really go for blueberry muffins but I wouldn’t say I really like muffins in general. It’s got to be the blueberries, eh? Anyway, my mother bakes blueberry muffins about once a month, at which time it’s a veritable derby to the kitchen in order to get one before they’re all gone.
What you’ve done here, though, is fantastic, because unlike my mother’s, yours are baked from scratch! I bet they were wonderful (they sure look it).