Lucky for me, I had ingredients for muffins after filling a St. Patrick’s Day request for Chocolate Chip Whiskey Muffins. Add to that a need to develop a super tasty blueberry muffin recipe for brunch. Then add to THAT some sour cream (leftover from tasty tasty tacos) and you’ve got the ingredients for a one woman muffin smackdown.

Hello, breakfast.

The base recipe I use for the whiskey muffins is an easy yogurt batter, but a lot of great blueberry muffin recipes (including the one we made in pastry school) call for sour cream instead. Having both on hand, plus a trusty base recipe that was easy to divide in half meant that I was in business and ready to reveal the results in less than an hour.

Yumberries!

One thing I knew my Ultimate Blueberry Muffins needed was lemon zest, so I added that, along with a little vanilla and a sugary sprinkle. I do really love my blueberries with cinnamon, but feel that it goes a little better with the wild ones than with the gigantic cultivated berries I’d be more likely to have on hand. Cultivated blueberries can be really one-dimensional in flavor and the lemon brightens them up considerably.

Giant explosions of BLUE!

You probably want to know who won. DID either of them win? The batters should have been completely identical, except for the yogurt vs. sour cream. Well, they weren’t identical. The yogurt batter was fluffier and stiffer, the sour cream batter a little runny. I figured the yogurt muffins would come out on top. So I stuck them in the oven. And waited. And rotated the pans. And waited. And pulled the pans from the oven. And waited. And stuck the muffins in the fridge to hurry their cooling. And waited. And made tea for a muffin-and-tea party when Zack got home. And waited…

Love these wrappers. Wonder if I could use them at the restaurant?

I decided to try a yogurt muffin first. It was soft, the lemon was subtle but detectable, the blueberries had exploded into lovely pockets of juicy indigo pectin stickiness. It was good.

I moved on to the sour cream muffin. In the oven, the stiff-looking yogurt batter had melted a bit and looked a little flat in the wrappers. But the sour cream muffins rose evenly and didn’t develop too much overhang in the pan (muffin tops may be lovely but I’d rather have a smaller, tasty-all-over muffin than one with an overblown, crispy top and a dry stump). I admired the crumb and the berries…so far very similar. But then I tasted one.

I am now convinced that sour cream is magical when combined with blueberries in a muffin batter.

There’s a certain flavor and texture that just strikes me as ideal for a blueberry muffin. These muffins have it. They’re not too cakey, not too sweet, very light but still substantial. They’d hold up fine to being buttered. They’re like a bright little ray of sunshine in your kitchen. Best of all, they’re easy to make. Almost as easy as Whiskey Muffins.

The ideal muffin.

Blueberry Ultimuffins

1. 1 3/4 cups AP flour
2. 3/4 cup sugar
3. 2 tsp baking powder
4. 1 tsp baking soda
5. 1/2 tsp salt
6. 1/4 cup oil (canola or light olive oil work well)
7. 2/3 cup sour cream
8. 2/3 cup milk
9. Zest of 1 lemon
10. 8 oz. blueberries
11. Raw sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400F. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium mixing bowl, whisking thoroughly. Combine the oil, sour cream, milk and lemon zest in a large measuring cup or small mixing bowl and whisk or stir with a fork until well mixed. Dump the wet mixture and blueberries into the dry mixture and gently stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until there are no more large streaks of flour, but don’t overmix. Spoon the batter into a paper-lined or floured-and-greased muffin tin. Sprinkle fairly generously with the raw sugar, if using. Bake 15 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the muffins to cool for at least 5 minutes in the pan before removing to wire racks to finish cooling. Serve within a day or 2. Makes 12.

You may notice that in my Whiskey Muffin recipe, I used melted butter originally. I’ve switched to oil for muffins because I think it produces a much lighter final product. I really like what it did to my most recent batch of Whiskey Muffins. I also increased the amount of blueberries called for – I used 6 oz. but I think the muffins need 8 oz.

Next time I make these (hopefully in my new station but I’d be ok with making them at home again) I may try slightly decreasing the amount of liquid, which is a change I made with the Whiskey Muffins (though that was to make them less like eating straight whiskey). I feel like the batter could be a little stiffer and it might produce even higher, rounder muffins if the batter wasn’t so wet.

I know I don’t talk about myself all that much here. I’m more interested in telling you about food. But as this is food related, I figured I should mention it here.

I left my job.

I know. I really liked my job. And I still really like the restaurant. But sometimes, you have to move on to something else. So I decided to go in search of that something else. And I considered all sorts of things in my search…switching over to bakery work, learning a totally new cuisine, even raw desserts. Then I got lucky.

I’m not going to say too much now since it’s not open yet. Let’s just say I’m getting my very own pastry station. Dessert concepts have been submitted and approved. I can get in there and start testing in a matter of days. There’s a lot of work ahead of me, but it’s incredible that I’ve come this far, this fast.

Watch this space for more details (including, you know, name and address and opening date).

That’s enough of that for now. Let’s move on to the cupcakes I made for this month’s Mystery Box Challenge.

Is it really spring?

This month’s theme, luckily for me, was to make a pretty pretty birthday cupcake for someone special. My mom has a March birthday and what could be more special than that?

It blooms!

When I think of my mom, I think of plants and flowers and growing up in a house with a yard full of wild strawberries. So I made Spring Lawn Cupcakes with Strawberry Marshmallow Blossoms, Fresh Mint Custard and Chocolate Ganache Frosting.

Roots? Roots!

Since I’m generally all about flavors over really fancy presentation, I had to think hard to come up with something clever to make these as pretty as possible, so I filled the cupcakes with the pretty green custard to give the cross-section an illusion of roots growing from the soil.

Wishing for real flowers...

A few notes, if you make these. The recipe as I’ve written it only make 8 cupcakes, but you can’t very well just make a few small flowers’ worth of marshmallow, so you’ll have a lot of strawberry marshmallows left over. However, I’m not really minding…

Spring Lawn Cupcakes

First, Make the Cupcakes (adapted from Martha Stewart):

1. 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
2. 3 Tbsp hot water
3. 1 cup AP flour
4. 1/4 tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 tsp baking powder
6. 1/2 tsp salt
7. 3 oz. butter
8. 1/2 cup +1 Tbsp sugar
9. 1 egg
10. 1 tsp vanilla
11. 1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350F. Whisk together the cocoa powder and hot water, set aside. Sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and sugar, then transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on medium-high speed until cool (4-5 minutes). Beat in the eggs one at a time, thoroughly scraping down the bowl in between additions, then beat in the vanilla. Thoroughly incorporate the cocoa mixture, then alternately add the dry mixture and the sour cream in three additions each. Mix the batter until homogenous but don’t overwork it. Scoop into lined muffin tins, bake 10 minutes, rotate the pans and bake for another 10 minutes. Test the cakes with a toothpick to make sure they’re not wet on the inside before removing from the oven and cooling in the pans for 15 minutes. Remove to racks to finish cooling, then chill overnight, loosely wrapped in plastic.

Fresh Mint Custard:

1. 1 cup milk
2. About 30 medium-large fresh mint leaves, washed, dried and roughly torn
3. 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
4. 2 egg yolks
5. 2 Tbsp cornstarch
6. Green gel food coloring

Place the milk and mint in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil, then remove from heat and cover. Steep at least an hour, until the milk tastes “leafy” but not too minty. Once you’re happy with the flavor, return it to the heat. While you wait for it to get hot again, whisk together the sugar, yolks and cornstarch (beat them really hard and don’t let them get too gloppy) and continue whisking until the milk steams. Pour the milk into the yolk mixture through a strainer, whisking constantly. Whisk in the food coloring a little at a time, until it’s a light yellowish spring green color. Once it’s all mixed together return it to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly. Once it becomes thick, taste it, but continue whisking. If it tastes at all starchy, keep cooking it, repeating the process until it no longer tastes like starch. Force through a chinois or strainer into a bowl, then press plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard and cut a few thin slits in it to let steam escape. Let cool in the refrigerator overnight.

Strawberry Marshmallows:

1. 1/4 oz. powdered gelatin (1 packet Knox)
2. 6 Tbsp cold water
3. 1 cup sugar
4. 1/3 cup corn syrup
5. Pinch salt
6. 1-2 Tbsp strawberry juice
7. Red gel food coloring
8. Powdered sugar

Pour 1/4 cup of the cold water into the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle with the gelatin. Bloom for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the remaining 2Tbsp water with the sugar and corn syrup in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and pour into the bloomed gelatin, then beat on the highest speed with the whip attachment for about 8 minutes, until the marshmallow is airy and fluffy. While it’s whipping, prepare a rectangular pan (a loaf pan would be fine, or a small sheet pan) with a generous amount of nonstick spray, then a piece of parchment paper and another layer of spray. Also apply the spray to a rubber spatula. Once the marshmallow is fluffy, beat in the strawberry juice and just enough food coloring to make it light pink. Once fully incorporated, quickly scrape the marshmallow into the prepared pan, spreading it flat if necessary. Top with another piece of greased parchment and let set for at least 3 hours.

Once set, cut out flowers with a small oiled cutter. If the pan you used for the marshmallows is small and your marshmallows are very thick, just cut thin slices and stamp out the flowers from there. Toss cut marshmallows in powdered sugar and store in an airtight container.

Ganache Frosting:

1. 6 oz. heavy cream
2. 6 oz. dark/bittersweet chocolate, chopped small

Heat the cream to a low boil and pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for a couple of minutes, then mix with a rubber spatula, stirring in small circles as you go around the bowl. If there are still chunks of chocolate after you’ve fully incorporated the mixture, heat over simmering water, stirring frequently until smooth. Chill, stirring occasionally, until it is thick and spreadable.

Assembly:

1. Chilled cupcakes
2. Fresh mint custard
3. Ganache frosting
4. Strawberry marshmallow flowers
5. Small fresh mint leaves, washed and dried

Using a small circle cutter, remove the center of each cupcake. Reserve the “stumps.” Beat the custard with a spatula or a handheld or stand mixer until it is smooth and pipeable and load into a pastry bag fitted with a very small round tip. Fill the cupcakes with the custard, reserving the leftover custard in the piping bag for a later stage of decoration.

Put the ganache into a piping bag fitted with a very large round tip and pipe blobs of frosting onto the cupcakes, fully covering the “root” of the cupcake. Crumble up the reserved bits of removed cake and press the crumbs into the frosting. Pipe a small circle of custard onto the top of the cupcake and arrange two or three mint leaves on it, then press in a marshmallow flower.

Makes 8

The winner of March’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Angela’s Images; a selection of handmade crafts
• Bake It Pretty; a $5 online gift card
• Beanilla; a $7 online gift card
• Miss Kitty Creations; a handmade cupcake charm of your choice
• Simply Caked; 600 brown greaseproof cupcake liners
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a $5 online gift card
• Tundra Books; a selection of 3 very sweet children’s books

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Can you guess what it is?

A definite favorite color combination of mine.

You’d probably guess that’s chocolate cake, but you’d be wrong. There’s not a bit of chocolate anywhere in that cupcake. Think fragrant, roasted, strong, caffeinated…

Yes, these are raspberry coffee cupcakes. And they are ridiculously delicious.

You’ve never had coffee and raspberry before? You’re missing out. Ever had a cup of espresso with a particularly fruity finish? Imagine if that finish kept going into full berry flavor territory…

Like the foam on a very special cappuccino.

Early on I decided that I HAD to make the cake itself coffee flavored. I luckily came upon a great recipe fairly quickly in my search. It results in soft, fragrant little cakes that are sturdy enough for even thick fillings…we’ll get to that in a minute.

Happy yummy dust makes it all that much better.

In keeping with the coffee theme I decided to top the cupcakes with a simple raspberry foam frosting and a dusting of instant espresso powder. It’s almost marshmallowy and smells incredible. I figured a buttercream would be too rich and I really love the cloudlike, organic swirls of simple meringues.

Raspberries, distilled into pure jellied awesomeness.

Now back to that filling. It’s stupid easy. All you need is a heaping cup of really nice raspberries (preferably from a farmer’s market, or even wild if you can find them) and a cup of sugar. Simple small-batch jam is one of my favorite summer cupcake fillings and this one REALLY delivers. The best part is, there’s no pitting, cutting or pureeing involved, since raspberries are so naturally delicate. In fact these cupcakes are shockingly easy and simple to make – the hardest part is making sure you have the aforementioned tasty berries and some nice instant espresso.

Does indeed go very well with a nice cup of coffee.

Raspberry Coffee Cupcakes

First, Make the Filling:

1. 1 heaping cup fresh or frozen raspberries
2. 1 cup sugar

Place the berries in a tall-sided medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Once the berries start getting juicy and bubbling slightly, mix in the sugar, mashing up the berries roughly, and bring up to a low boil. Keep boiling for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally with a silicone spatula or other heatproof instrument. Meanwhile, place a small white plate in the freezer. Once the 5 minutes of boiling have elapsed, place a small blob of the jam on the chilled plate. Once the jam on the plate is cool, poke it to see if it’s jelled or if it’s still liquidy. Repeat the cold plate test once every couple of minutes until the jam is sufficiently jelled. (If you happen to overcook it and make it too thick, you can always thin it out with a little hot water.) Remove the hot jam from the saucepan to a heatproof container and chill in a small ice bath to room temperature or cooler, then keep chilled in the refrigerator until needed.

Next, Make the Cakes:

1. 1/2 cup milk
2. 1/3 cup instant espresso (use something reasonably ok, not like instant Folger’s or something; I used some freshly-bought Medaglio D’Oro)
3. 8 oz butter
4. 1 1/2 cups sugar
5. 4 eggs
6. 1 tsp vanilla
7. 2 cups AP flour
8. 2 tsp baking powder
9. 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place the milk and espresso in a small saucepan and heat until just steaming, stirring to dissolve the espresso. Set aside to cool. Cream together the butter and sugar in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer. Gradually add the eggs and vanilla, scraping down the bowl between additions. Sift together the dry ingredients and add to the batter alternately with the espresso milk, in 3 additions each, scraping down the bowl often and being careful not to overmix. Once everything is incorporated, bake in lined muffin tins for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into any of the cakes comes out clean. Cool completely before filling and frosting.

To fill the cakes as neatly as possible (tutorial coming soon!), freeze them solid once they are cool. Use a small circle cutter to remove the center of each and trim the “lid” of each cupcake to 1/2″ thick, reserving each alongside its cupcake. Fill the holes with the raspberry jam almost up to the top, then replace the lids and keep chilled until ready to frost.

When Your Filling is In, You Can Make the Frosting!:

1. 4 egg whites
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
4. 3 Tbsp raspberry juice (extracted from about 1/3 cup raspberries, strained of any seeds or chunks of fruit)
5. 1 tsp instant espresso

Place the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Place the bowl over simmering water (make sure that the bowl doesn’t actually tough the water) and whisk often. Once the bowl’s contents are hot to the touch, begin whipping to soft peaks, then turn the mixer to medium speed and drizzle in the raspberry juice. Continue whipping to stiff peaks. Dollop onto filled cupcakes, sprinkling with instant espresso. Keep chilled. Makes 20.

Hooray for berries!

However, there are exceptions to every rule, and sometimes even a least favorite something has its place. One good place to stick your raspberries is in this awesome ice cream.

Tangy, sweet and cold.

Time for a bit of a segue: Some time prior to the making of this ice cream (which admittedly was probably like a month ago…oops) I had picked up some gooseberries at the Green Market. I totally loved them but was unsure what to do with them, so I appealed to Twitter for help. In response I was offered a copy of the newly released The Berry Bible, from the always awesome Natalie (thank youuuuu). I gladly accepted, and though it didn’t arrive at my door in time for me to utilize it in my gooseberry experiment,* it sure came in handy later when raspberries began popping up all over. The book itself is indeed a veritable religious text of all things berries, and like most berry-driven guides originates in the Pacific Northwest. Though it’s quite dry reading and the recipes are very specific to obscure berries and local ingredients, it’s still a nice book to have on the shelf beside some of my other definitive titles.

I left in the seeds for crunch and appearances.

I ended up adapting a recipe for buttermilk-loganberry ice cream and it was absolutely wonderful, a really nice thing to have around during one of the early heat waves of this ridiculous summer. It would be great with some peach puree swirled in, or just topped with warm stewed peaches.

What a way to cool off.

Raspberry Buttermilk Ice Cream (adapted from The Berry Bible)

1. 1 pint raspberries
2. 1 1/2 cups sugar
3. 2 cups buttermilk
4. 1 Tbsp vodka

Thoroughly but gently rinse the raspberries, then drain and pat dry. Puree just until there are no whole berries left. Pour the puree into a mixing bowl and whisk in the other ingredients. Churn in an ice cream machine or by hand and freeze until firm and scoopable.

* Zack ended up suggesting gooseberry pancakes (since gooseberries are somewhat blueberry-like), which I made using the standard pancake recipe in The Joy of Cooking and serving with homemade elderflower syrup. They were really tasty and something I’ll make again next year when gooseberries pop up again for a week or two…though I have a tweak intended for the pancakes, if I can get a special flour. Ooooo….

Ooh, springy!

Yes, salad. Not something you’d normally bother to post a recipe for, but it was so cute, so tasty, and such a happy coincidence of ingredients that I knew I needed to share.

Color means flavor!

It was actually SO tasty that I ate one four times in two days, until the magical combination of fresh pea shoots, sweet sugarsnaps, crisp seedless cucumber and brilliant red strawberries ran out. If i come across this combination all at once again I’ll replicate this salad for sure – I’ve still got plenty of the flavorful local honey and I always have Balsamic, extra virgin olive oil and black pepper on hand.

Sweet, leafy and crisp.

This salad is amazing served at any time of day…I ate it for breakfast a couple of times, as dinner once and as a late-night, post-work snack another night. Get the freshest ingredients possible and only buy strawberries that fill the air with their sweet berry perfume. Use good honey. Enjoy devouring springtime.

Amazingly addictive and happily healthy.

Springy Peaberry Salad

1. 1 pint strawberries
2. 1 smallish seedless cucumber
3. About 30 fat sugar snap peas
4. 2-3 cups pea shoots
5. 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
6. 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
7. 2 Tbsp honey
8. Up to 1/4 tsp black pepper

Wash all the vegetables. Hull and slice the strawberries. Slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and slice each half in 1/4″ thick slices. Remove the stems and strings on the sugar snap peas and chop each in half crosswise. Place all in a large bowl. Combine the Balsamic, oil, honey and pepper in a small bowl and whisk vigorously until emulsified. Pour over the salad and toss well. Serve immediately. Serves four.

Ah, that even feels healthy to write about! Don’t worry, though, the next two posts will be all about the ice cream – one fruity with a somewhat curious recipe, the other an eggless but still VERY indulgent classic you probably never thought of making at home.