Monday, August 23, 2004

Joy of Baking
{adventure#04} Blueberry Muffin

I know. I know. I am so obsessed with making muffin these days. Baking muffin has turned into a weekly baking ritual now. Lucky I have someone to gobber all the muffins down. Or else my waistline....urgh Nightmare!

♥ foodies date: 21 August 2004
♥ where: pinkcocoa's kitchen

♥ donna hay's blueberry muffin

my last 2 muffin projects (see here and here) had very different result. The apple cinammon muffin was moist and cake-like while the choco-alcoholic muffin was yummy (because of the rum) but a tad too dry. I have been using the creaming method ie. making the muffin the way as you would make a cake. I am starting to wonder if the muffin method would have a different result and perhaps help solve my muffin problems.

I hesitated in using the muffin method because in the past, I had produced some very floury and probably undercooked muffins using the muffin method. When people's never fail recipe falls into my hand, they just turn into some inedible sorta mess. *sigh*

Anyway I needed a change in my muffin making skill so I took out my Donna Hay's modern classic 2 cookbook. Her blueberry muffin (using the muffin method) looks really good.

blueberry muffin
from donna hay's modern classic 2
ingredients:
270g plain (all-purpose) flour*
2tsp baking powder
170g caster (superfine) sugar
250g sour cream**
2 eggs
1tsp finely grated lemon rind***
1/3cup (2.5 fl oz) vegetable oil (i used canola oil)
1&1/4cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 180c (350f). grease a 6 x 1 cup capacity non-stick muffin tins. (I used canola oil spray)
2. Whisk flour and baking powder together and sift into a bowl. (I sifted twice). Add sugar and stir to combine.
3. Place sour cream, eggs, lemon rind and oil in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
4. Using a spatula or metal spoon, stir the sour cream mixture through the flour and sugar mixture until just combined. You should have a very crumbly mixture.
Do not attempt to mix until it appears smooth and glossy. Dont worry about the crumbly texture. the crumbs will disappear as the sugar in the muffin melts in the cooking process. (see tip below)
5. Sprinkle over blueberries and stir once. Spoon mixture into muffin tins until two-thirds full.
6. Bake for 35min or until cooked when an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Tip from donna hay
For tender muffins that rise well, stir the mixture evenly nd only until just combined. Do not overwork the mixture.
If bake in a 12 x 1/2 cup muffin tins, reduce the cooking time to 12min.

* i used wholemeal plain flour. a good way to add extra fibre to the diet perhaps?
** i used lite sour cream. i am not sure if this is going to have a different result if i used full-fat sour cream. i am trying to cut down the fat content.
*** didnt have lemon at home so i omitted this and added 1tsp cinammon powder in step2. alternately you can add vanilla extract in step3.


♥ the very crumbly looking muffin mixture.
I was actually very tempted to smooth out the mixture. Took a hell lot of a great will to stop myself from over-mixing. Dont want to have another bad-tasting muffin again.


♥ puffy blueberry muffin
Just out from the oven! I tested the muffin with the skewer. It was clean and the muffins sprung back immediately on pressing. Guess it's done!

The verdict
The muffin is very soft and moist. The sour cream sure did a very good job in adding moisture. It's a little too moist though and did have a bit of floury taste. Argh. I dont like floury taste.

The over-moist bit i reckon I can overcome by subsitituing the sour cream with either milk or buttermilk (for richer flavour). I would imagine using pouring cream produces a very moist muffin too.

I think i like my creaming method method better. It produces a silkier texture though I still have to overcome the dry texture barrier. Okie, it's back to the creaming method. This time I am searching for a low-fat recipe!