Martha's Blueberry Muffins

I bought a 2 lb clamshell of blueberries at Costco, so realized I suddenly had enough to EAT as much as I want AND bake! So I made blueberry muffins to send to my attorneys to thank them for their hard work on my new business enterprise.

I decided to go right to the source and use a recipe out of Martha's Baking Handbook.

The recipe is also available online HERE.

The recipe in the book omits the 1/4 cup sugar and nutmeg mixture and advises you sprinkle with sugar. I used the really coarse and crunchy sanding sugar on top and I was told it was what MADE the muffins. I really LOVE the muffin tops and I like them to be crunchy as well.



Yum, crunchy craggly tops! 2 cups of blueberries really fills each muffin and when you break it open it's almost entirely blue with the berries. This one is a simple, easy, winner of a muffin that uses ingredients you will have on hand.

Fruit crisp

This is my take on using fruit that may or may not be on its way out. It is imminently better with vanilla ice cream, cream, or whipped cream or all 3!

Fruit Crisp
yields 4 servings or ramekins

Fruit filling
2 plums, 1/4 cup frozen blueberries, 2 strawberries
(or just start cutting up fruit until you have enough to almost fill 4 small 6 oz ramekins)
2 T sugar
1 T flour

Topping
3 T butter
1/4 c flour
1/4 c oats
1/4 c sliced almonds
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 t cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt

Mix together fruit, sugar, and flour, and let sit at least 30 minutes, or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix together topping ingredients with a pastry cutter, 2 forks, or your fingers, working the butter into the other ingredients just until it resembles small peas.

Parcel the fruit out to the 4 ramekins and add the topping. Place on a baking sheet covered in parchment to prevent spillover. Cook for 30-35 minutes until hot and bubbly. Let sit for 5 minutes and serve with your choice of topping.

You can make the butter topping ahead, just cover and refrigerate until use.

Strawberry Shortcake

I am of the camp that does NOT like a biscuit-y shortcake. I know, I know, how very unSouthern of me. When I think of it, my mouth just gets dry, like most shortcakes I've had.

Growing up, we always had those little sponge cakes that had indentations in the top with our strawberries. I guess we always want what we are comfortable with.

I was very pleased to find this recipe for an almost sponge cake baked in a tube pan like an angel food cake. I appreciate that it does NOT need 12 egg whites like angel food cake. I never find anything to do with all those leftover egg yolks.

Sponge cake for strawberry shortcake

4 eggs at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk

Note - it says cake flour, not all purpose flour. I usually use Swans Down brand. Cake flour has a low protein content, unlike bread flour, and therefore should not be used to make bread. You want a cake that is light and fluffy, and does not develop gluten like bread. Softasilk is another popular brand. If you do not have cake flour, you CAN use 7/8 cup all purpose flour and 2 tablespoons cornstarch per cup of cake flour, but I would try and use cake flour if you can.

Preheat oven to 325 deg F.

Separate eggs, placing yolks in large mixing bowl and setting whites aside. Beat yolks with sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.

Sift cake flour with baking powder onto waxed or parchment paper.

Fold dry ingredients alternately with milk into egg mixture, beginning and ending with dry. In a separate bowl beat reserved egg whites until stiff and then fold into batter.

Pour into an ungreased 9 inch tube pan and bake in preheated oven 45-50 minutes. Invert pan to cool. Remove from pan when cake is completely cool.

It's best cut with a serrated knife.

This would be very easy to modify with different extracts and things such as lemon/lime/orange zest.

I served with macerated strawberries and whipped cream. yum!

Cherry Cobbler

I always get designated the "dessert girl". And I notice this blog has a lot of desserts on it...I never intended to be a baker, but I guess it's just more fun. I have a lot less inspiration when it comes to entrees. Anyway, for our 4th of July out at the lake, I contributed dessert. I made some plain old Toll House cookies (that got mysteriously overdone in my oven at only 8 minutes) and took a request from my adoring fans for some cherry cobbler. I looked around online at recipes that seemed more complicated than I wanted to make it, and just decided to take the family's peach cobbler recipe and siply use cherries instead.

Here's where I don't know much - cherries are not really a staple of Southern food. I certainly wasn't going to buy fresh and pit them, staining my clothing in the process, as much fun as Martha makes it seem. And canned - eh, that's not my style really. So I figured they had frozen cherries, right? Yeah, at $4 a bag! I felt for that much I could go to Whole Foods and get hoity toity organic. I suppose there is not much call for frozen cherries at Albertson's. So I bought 2 bags but came home and figured I could make do with 1. I heated them up on the stove and found them to be not too sweet so I added a 1/4 cup of sugar and soon juice started pouring out of them. I reduced it to get it syrupy, then just followed the recipe...

I know, part of this recipe is really odd, but - that's just the way it is.

Fruit Cobbler

1/2 stick butter
1 cup ap flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
fruit - either 1 can sliced peaches, or a couple cups of fruit in juice

Preheat your over to 350 degrees F.

Put the butter in a 9x13 pan or equivalent baking dish and put in the oven. While it melts, assemble the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Whisk a few times to combine.

When the butter is all melted, pull the pan out and add the milk to the flour mixture and whisk to combine. Pour batter over the butter. Add your can of peaches or fruit over the batter. The batter will rise up over the fruit during cooking.

Cook for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned on top and not soupy in the middle.

Great warm with vanilla ice cream!