Thursday, September 29, 2011

My Fabulous Muffin Base Recipe

Hello everyone!

How have you been? Long time no read! My fault, entirely. I know! It has been a while since I've made a cake worthy of posting hehe, since we have been on a long and wonderful vacation! Since we've been home, I've managed to make a whipped cream cake for DH and some odd ball nom noms but none that look as delicious to me as these muffins! I got this muffin base recipe from the old days of Recipezaar online, where I had a membership. This recipe has been with me for years and has seen many a-variation! It is versatile, light and fluffy, gorgeous and delightful. I've made it in muffin cup pans and mini loaf pans. I've added all kinds of fruit to my heart's content! It always comes out wonderful!

From my kitchen to yours, please enjoy this recipe and let me know how you liked it!

Blueberry Version: I mashed up the blueberries and mixed into the batter so as to make it this lovely indigo color. If you leave them whole they look absolutely lovely as well, but these blueberries were huge and in my opinion too large for the muffin cups :) I ended up needing a couple of tablespoons more of flour to get the batter looking just right due to the excessive juice they gave off once squished! Don't be afraid to experiment!


Fabulous Muffin Base & Crumb Topping

For The Base:

1-3/4 cups flour
2-1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1c sugar
2 large eggs
1/2c oil
3/4c whole milk
1tsp vanilla
2c fruit pieces or whatever

In a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. Set aside.

For The Crumb Topping:


1 cup flour
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
2 Tbsp sugar (white or "raw")
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

In a medium bowl stir ingredients together with a fork or pastry cutter until combined, and crumbly looking. Set aside.

Finish the muffin base:


Add the fruit pieces or whatever you're adding as the feature ingredient to the dry ingredient bowl and mix until coated, then add the wet ingredient bowl to the dry ingredient bowl and gently fold just until combined. Not over mixing at this stage makes for a very fluffy tender muffin. Immediately spoon into greased muffin cups or whatever you are using, with or without liners, until about 2/3 full, and spoon about a tablespoon of crumb topping over the poured batter.

Bake the muffins:


Have ready a pre-heated oven with racks at center, about 350 degrees (170c I believe) and pop those babies in but do it gently, please :) Bake for about 25 minutes, watching carefully that they don't burn. Remove when the centers appear fully risen and set, when lightly pressed the centers feel slightly springy to the touch.



Enjoy!

Jemoiselle