Saturday, September 8, 2007

Do Over: Blueberry Muffins

I tackled these guys again, using the blueberries I got at the Evanston Farmers Market last week. I switched recipes, going for the Foster's Market cookbook. The recipe is also available online here. The alterations to the recipe were that I used jumbo size eggs instead of large (based on my suspicion that my issues with crumbling were the result of too little binding protein), using Penzey's dried lemon zest when it was clear that my only fresh lemon wasn't going to provide enough (it was a couple of days old and the rind had softened) and adding a bit (~1/4 tsp) of lemon extract to pump up the citrus flavor. I also dusted the tops with sanding sugar, just for flair.

The food processor cup/bowl thing (what do you call that? The place where the blades and food go?) was in the wash, so I used the two-knives-in-a-mixing-bowl method to chop the berries, since it was just asking for a coarse chop. That was kind of fun.

In baking, I made sure I used the entire cooking time (based on the under-baking last time, which may have also contributed to the crumbling). I also switched the backing tins' positions midway to even out the heating. I looked for a little more resistance to the toothpick in testing.

The result was miles better than last time. I would say that they were on the tough side, which is probably a result of overmixing, which they did warn about in the recipe. On a range of 0-10 from crumbly to tough, with 5 as the mid-point of perfect texture, I'd have to rate the first attempt as a 1 (God knows how they stayed together on the plate) and this as a 6.5/7. Much, much closer to the mark.

1 comment:

Johanna said...

They call it a work bowl, I think.