Muffin-palooza

After the success of my experiment freezing my Banana Carrot Muffins, I decided to bake several different kinds of muffins for easy weekday breakfasts.

A coworker of mine has a family farm in Pennsylvania, and every time she visits, her mom loads her up with fruits and veggies to freeze. Last week, Joyce gave me two gallon size Ziploc bags of shredded zucchini and two vacuum-sealed bags of blueberries. I decided to work with both of these for my weekend baked good blitz. I will post on the Zucchini Bread I made later - today, we're all about muffins!

Muffin #1 - Blueberry Crumble

I found an awesome blueberry muffin recipe on AllRecipes.com. Stuffed with fresh blueberries and topped with a sweet crumb topping, these muffins really live up to their moniker - they're "to die for!"

One thing I love about AllRecipes is the way you can adjust the quantity of the recipe to what you need. I increased the given yield of 8 to 16, then made some alterations. Below is the exact recipe I used.

Blueberry Crumble Muffins

adapted from AllRecipes

Muffins

3 c. all-purpose flour

1-1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder

2/3 c. canola oil

2 eggs

2/3 c. milk

3-1/2 c. frozen blueberries, thawed

Topping

1 c. white sugar

1/2 c. butter, cubed

1 tbsp. cinnamon

2/3 c. flour

Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Mix all topping ingredients together in a small bowl. Combine with a fork and set aside.

Mix dry muffin ingredients together. Combine oil, eggs, and milk in large measuring cup. Add to the flour mixture and stir gently to combine.

Fold in the blueberries.

Fill muffin cups, top with crumb mixture. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes or until done.

Makes 18 large muffins.

As you can see in the photo above, if you double the muffin recipe, it's definitely not necessary to double the crumble recipe too. I had more than half of the topping left over after I had generously piled it on all the muffins.

I added WAY more blueberries than the recipe called for. I wanted to use everything that was in the vacuum-sealed bag, because I was not in the mood to come up with another blueberry recipe.

I was nervous about the bright purple batter, but amazingly enough, once the muffins were baked, the purple color had miraculously disappeared. I'm not sure how that's even possible, but you can see the pictures for yourself.

These muffins are fantastic. The sweet crumb topping is counteracted by the tartness of the blueberries, the muffin is light and delicious. I will definitely make these again.

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Muffin #2 – Banana Walnut

About two weeks ago, I rescued two brown bananas from their fated meeting with the garbage disposal and froze them so that I could repurpose them as banana nut muffins – one of Andrew’s favorites, and mine too.

My mom has a great banana bread recipe, but it's extremely dense, so I didn't think it would work well for muffins, which I expect to be fluffy and light. I went a-Googling and found Tyler Florence's recipe for Banana Nut Muffins.

Banana Walnut Muffins

adapted from Tyler Florence's recipe

2 c. all-purpose flour

1-1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 overripe bananas

1 c. brown sugar

3/4 c. (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2/3 c. walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 and grease your muffin tins. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk the bananas and sugar together for three minutes (I went up to 6 on the KA Mixer)

Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat another minute. Fold in the dry ingredients gently - only stir until they are just incorporated. Fold in the nuts.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Makes 12 medium-sized muffins.

We really enjoyed these muffins as well. I subbed walnuts for the pecans Tyler's recipe called for and didn't add the additional two mashed bananas for texture. The muffins have plenty of banana flavor, and I much prefer walnuts paired with bananas anyway. I'll save this recipe for the next time I want to make banana muffins instead of banana bread.

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Muffin #3 - Corn

I have yet to attempt "homemade" corn muffins. I used a Jiffy mix to make the corn muffins. After mixing the ingredients according to the instructions, I always let the muffin mix sit for 15 minutes or so before baking them. This seems to allow the batter to rise a bit, and my muffins are always a bit fluffier when I let the batter rest.

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I've posted on the best way to freeze muffins in the past, but here are my instructions again.

Cool muffins completely. Wrap each muffin tightly in plastic wrap. Put all muffins into a gallon Ziploc bag or an airtight container. When you're ready to eat a muffin, take it out of the freezer a couple hours prior to desired consumption.

Do NOT thaw muffins in the microwave - it's okay to reheat them, but don't attempt to thaw them this way. Baked goods frozen and thawed using this method are always even yummier than they were when they went into the freezer.