Blueberry Muffins--Updated

I volunteered to bake a dozen blueberry muffins for an upcoming meeting.

Since I don't have a blueberry muffin recipe that I'm very enthusiastic about, I thought I would look around for one. I bought lemons when I went shopping because I definitely wanted to find a recipe that included lemon. I was also hoping for a whole-grain recipe.

I got lucky! The first place I looked, I found what turned out to be a great recipe. Thank you, King Arthur Flour recipes. Here is the recipe I found.

My tweaks:

• I used flour that I ground from hard white wheat.
• You'll notice that this recipe does not have any lemon in it. Otherwise, it looked so good that I checked the reviews. Some people had used lemon zest and reduced or left out the almond extract. So I left out the almond extract and added the zest of one lemon.
• I used frozen blueberries for two reasons. For one thing, I already had some. Also, they are the small kind, from Maine, so you end up with the blueberry-goodness distributed more evenly throughout each muffin. The only bad part is that frozen blueberries tend to leave blue streaks in the muffins.
• Another day I may write about the issues related to buying fresh blueberries in the middle of winter in a northern climate.
• I didn't put a topping on because I didn't want to add any sugar. I think these muffins are already plenty sweet. They are muffins, not cupcakes, after all. In particular, I didn't want to use their suggested cinnamon-sugar topping because I don't think lemon and cinnamon mix very well. Another time I would like to try sprinkling some chopped or slivered almonds on top, but I didn't have any today. (I only buy almonds if I plan to use them for something specific because I love them way. too. much!)
• I followed their directions for mixing the ingredients together. But next time I think I will add the wet ingredients to the creamed mixture, and then add the dry ingredients, followed by stirring in the blueberries. Their order seemed counterintuitive to me, since you want to mix the flour as little as possible. I'll update this if I find I'm wrong. Update: My way of mixing--dry ingredients after wet ingredients--was easier and worked beautifully.

The muffins smelled divine while they were baking.

The texture was very delicate. The taste was heavenly. No butter needed.

These muffins combine great taste and texture with 100% fresh whole-grain goodness.

Pumpkin-Oat Muffins

Batters for quick breads like banana bread and zucchini bread can almost always be used to make muffins. That's how this recipe came to be. Originally, it was called Pumpkin-Oat Bread and was baked in a cake pan. As muffins, it works really well.

I didn't have any quick oats. I wasn't sure how rolled oats would work, since there isn't a lot of liquid to soften them up. I tried coarsely grinding the rolled oats, but they wouldn't go through the mill very easily. So I thought I would try coarsely grinding oat groats. It worked! It looked like fine instant oatmeal.

For context:

Back: oat groats and rolled oats; Front: coarsely-ground oats

And now, the recipe:

Pumpkin-Oat Muffins

Stir together and set aside:

1 1/2 cups (6.4 oz.) whole-wheat flour (soft white wheat flour)

1 1/2 cups (4.9 oz.) uncooked quick oats

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

2 1/2 tsp. baking soda

In a large bowl, cream:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

Add and beat until light:

3 eggs

Add and mix well:

2 cups canned pumpkin

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients all at once, mixing gently but thoroughly. Fill 24 greased muffin cups about ¾ full. If desired, sprinkle ¼ cup chopped walnuts on top of the muffins. Bake at 350°F for about 20-25 minutes, until tops spring back when lightly touched. Remove from tins and cool on rack.

Old-Style Pumpkin Muffins

These days when you buy a muffin, it's likely to be huge and taste as sweet as cake. This wasn't always so. I'm old, and when I was growing up, muffins were only slightly sweet. They were usually fairly plain. You ate them when they were freshly-baked and warm, with butter and honey or jam. They were served as part of a meal, typically breakfast, and they were considered to have nutritional value.

My girls went to Bernice M. Wright Nursery School. It was a cooperative school, and one of the parental responsibilities was to provide the snack periodically. According to the snack policy, you could take in home-made items, but not cake or cookies. One time when it was my turn for snack, I baked muffins. Carrot-Pineapple Muffins. All of the adults loved them and asked for the recipe. I always "forgot" to take them the recipe, because I used my Carrot-Pineapple Cake recipe. I just baked the batter in muffin tins and didn't frost them. Because I called them muffins, they were perceived to be nutritious.

I won't say that most muffins ever were all that nutritious, but there is definitely a lot more sugar in most muffins today than there used to be.

The pumpkin muffin recipe I used today is from an old Betty Crocker cookbook, which was the "new and revised" edition in 1978.

I tweaked the recipe a little bit, but these are still old-style muffins. They should be eaten while warm, with butter and honey or jam.

Pumpkin Muffins, 1978-Style

Stir together and set aside:

2 C whole wheat flour (8.5 oz.)

1/3 C sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

In a large bowl, beat:

1 egg

Add and stir in:

¾ C milk

¼ C canola oil

¼ C unsweetened applesauce

½ C pumpkin

½ C raisins

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients all at once, just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Fill 12 greased muffin cups about ¾ full. Bake at 400°F for about 20 minutes, until tops spring back when lightly touched. Remove from tins and cool on rack.

My tweaks: I used flour made from soft white wheat. The original recipe called for all-purpose white flour. It called for 1/2 cup vegetable oil and didn't specify a type. I prefer canola oil for something like this. Also, I almost always cut the amount of oil in half and replace it with unsweetened applesauce, as I did in this recipe.

It's a Great Year For Pumpkin

While we don't have our usual abundant apple crop this year, we do have a great pumpkin harvest. It turns out that pumpkins thrive in dry weather. So, every day this week I am going to use pumpkin to bake a different kind of muffin.

Today's recipe is based on a pumpkin muffin recipe that I first heard about at Weight Watchers. I don't know if it originated with Weight Watchers, but we called them--

Weight Watchers Pumpkin Spice Muffins

1 package spice cake mix, dry
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
2 apples, peeled and diced
Mix everything together well. Place in greased muffin tins, dividing evenly into 24 muffins. Bake at 425 degrees for about 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from tins and cool on rack.

Very easy! And low in points. Lacking fat and eggs, the texture is a little chewy, but they are tasty.

Somewhere I picked up the idea to top the muffins with chopped walnuts (1/4 cup total) and cinnamon-sugar or Splenda (mix 1 tsp. cinnamon with 2 Tbsp. sugar or Splenda). It's surprising how satisfying that little bit of walnuts is!

Another idea, suggested by my friend Debbie, is to add 1 cup (6 oz.) of cinnamon chips to the original mixture.They add a lot of flavor!

I wanted to make them using whole-wheat flour, so, in place of the spice cake mix, I used the dry ingredients in my mom's Buttermilk Spice Cake recipe.

In the past I've used whole-wheat flour from hard wheat and the muffins have been delicious. Today I used whole-wheat flour from soft wheat, and they were even better.

You might notice bits of red in the pictured muffins. That's because I didn't peel the apples. They are just fine that way--probably tastier! And I hate peeling apples!

Here is my version:

KSD's Weight Watchers Pumpkin Spice Muffins

2 C + 2 Tbsp. whole wheat flour (255 g)

1 C sugar

¾ C brown sugar

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp. baking soda

¾ tsp. ground cloves

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

15 oz. canned pumpkin (or 2 C pureed squash)

2 small apples, not peeled; (finely) diced

¼ C walnuts, chopped

2 Tbsp. cinnamon-sugar mixture (Mix together 2 Tbsp. sugar [or Splenda] and 1 tsp. cinnamon.)

cooking spray

Mix whole wheat flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon together. Because of the brown sugar, a pastry cutter is helpful. Stir in the pumpkin and apples until well-blended. Grease muffin tins with cooking spray. Divide the batter among 24 muffin cups. Sprinkle the walnuts on top of the muffins. Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture on top of the walnuts. Bake in a 425°F oven about 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the tins and cool on the rack.

Yields 24 muffins