I thought that there was no better way to begin the month of August than to share a delicious blueberry recipe. And you cannot get more delicious than an old fashioned blueberry muffins!
Whenever I think of August, I think of blueberries and corn, and when I think of wild blueberries, I immediately think of blueberry pie and blueberry muffins! It doesn't get much better than that!
Today's delicious Blueberry Muffin recipe comes from none other than the baking doyenne herself, Mary Berry. This is a gracious lady who has been around the kitchen more than a few times.
I love LOVED her on the Great British Bakeoff show. Somehow it was just not the same after she left. She brought a sense of class to the show.
This recipe comes from her book, Mary Berry's Baking Bible, which contains over 250 classic recipes. I, quite simply, love this book, almost as much as I love her!
You know muffins you buy at the shops? They are always far too big, far too sweet and far too expensive for what you are getting.
More cake than muffin, more often than not, they truly are disappointing. When I want a muffin, I want a muffin, and when I want cake I want cake.
These muffins are muffins, pure and simple. Not too sweet. Not too large. Beautifully textured. But then again, I would expect nothing less from Mary Berry.
I was very intrigued by the manner in which these were put together. You whisk together self rising flour and baking powder and then you drop in butter, which you rub into the flour with your fingertips.
Just until the mixture resembles fine dry breadcrumbs. I have done this often for making cakes, but never for muffins. Usually muffins use melted butter or oil.
Once you have the butter rubbed in you add lemon zest and sugar. I was tempted to use Dorie Greenspan's method of rubbing the lemon zest into the sugar, but for this first time baking these muffins I thought I would go with Mary's method.
She uses caster sugar which is a finely granulated sugar. In the UK their granulated sugar is much more coarser than ours in North America. It is perfectly fine to just use granulated sugar in these in North America.
It is pretty much the same in texture as caster sugar.
Its funny how things like something as simple as sugar, or flour for that matter, can differ greatly from one country to the next. In the UK, they mostly recommend caster sugar for baking.
That is because their granulated sugar is so coarse that it doesn't melt properly in recipes. If you have ever had a cake come out of the oven with a speckled top, that's because your sugar was too coarse and not creamed in well enough.
The purpose of creaming is to almost melt the sugar into the butter so that doesn't happen. For these, it didn't seem to matter.
In fact, in the UK, more often than not, the sugar is just stirred into the dry ingredients, like in scones for instance. I thought that totally odd, but it also totally works, especially if you are using caster sugar.
As with any muffin recipe, the wet ingredients are stirred into the dry ingredients, just until they are combined. That is what gives them their beautiful texture.
In a cake, you want a finer texture and crumb. Muffins are meant to be much more rustic. They are classified as a quick bread not a cake, and should eat as such.
Oh how I wish I had had some wild blueberries to use in these muffins. I can only think how lovely they would be with wild berries.
Alas, my blueberry picking days are over. When I was a child we spent many a hot day in August picking blueberries for my mother. It was hot, back breaking work.
Unlike high bush berries, wild blueberries grown close to the ground. You need to crouch when you are picking them. I cannot crouch these days due to arthritis.
But I have many fond memories of having picked them in the past. Most people here in Nova Scotia have their favorite blueberry picking territories, and are loath to share them with someone else. They do grow wild just about everywhere.
But are much more abundant in some areas than in others. When you find a prime spot you tend to stick to it and keep it to yourself. We once owned a house in Nictaux, close to the falls.
There was a gravel pit up back of us. The soil was dry and sandy and we had tons of berries, ripe for the picking. You could go out and pick every day and would have your bucket filled in next to no time.
The only problem with blueberries and the month of August is that the bears are out there picking them also. I can remember always being bear aware when picking berries as a child.
The bears are out scavenging and filling up their bellies in August for the Winter's hibernation they know lies ahead, and so you are as likely to come across a bear in the bush as you are berries. So you do need to be careful.
I am terrified of bears. Absolutely terrified.
In any case, I did not have to fight the bears for these berries I used today. They were highbush berries, not quite as sweet as the wild, but delicious nonetheless.
I took half of these over to my next door neighbor. I thought she would enjoy them.
These are a lovely muffin. Light and beautifully textured. Not too sweet, and stuffed with plenty of berries. I highly recommend!! If they are good enough for Mary, they are plenty good enough for me!
Mary Berry's Blueberry Muffins
Yield: 8
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 35 Min
Moist and delicious and stuffed with sweet berries!
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup plus 1 TBS (250g) self rising flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 1/2 TBS (50g) butter, at room temperature
- 6 1/2 TBS (75g) caster sugar (fine granulated sugar)
- 3/4 cup (175g) blueberries
- the finely grated zest of one lemon
- 2 large free range eggs, beaten
- 9 fluid ounces (250ml) milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400*F/200*C/ gas mark 6. Butter a muffin tin really well, or line with paper liners. (I used a six cup muffin tin and 2 ramekins.)
- Measure the flour and baking powder into a bowl and give it a good stir. Drop in the butter and then rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine dry bread crumbs. Stir in the lemon zest, sugar and blueberries.
- Mix the eggs and milk together and then add to the dry ingredients, stirring all together just until the mixture is combined. Its okay if the batter is a bit lumpy. In fact, this is desirable.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin cups filling them almost to the top.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until well risen and golden brown. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean and they should spring back when lightly touched.
- Leave to cool for a few minutes, then tip out onto a wire rack to cool for a bit longer.
- Beautiful served warm with a nice hot cuppa!
Of all the cakes I have baked and eaten through the years my second favorite cake of all time has to be my Spanish Cake recipe. It is so good that I remember once baking it three times in one week.
This is second only to my first favorite which is a Victoria Sponge Cake. I doubt that one will ever be knocked out of its "first place" spot in my life. This Spanish cake is a close second however.
With there just being one of me now however, I doubt that I could, or would want to, eat a whole Spanish Cake. Okay, in all honesty, I could.
It is that delicious. But would I want to? No, it would add a bazillion inches to my already wide girth. And so, since being on my own, I just have never baked it.
Aside from the fact that I have type 2 Diabetes, I just don't need to be eating things like this in huge quantities. But I also can't afford to have people over to eat whenever I decide I want a treat! (Limited income and all that.)
And so today I down-sized my Spanish Cake recipe to make a small delicious cake, perfectly sized for me, myself and I. Also Eileen and Tim (my oldest daughter and her husband) are coming over a bit later so they can help to polish it off.
I am having a bit of a blue day today. Doesn't help that it is raining cats and dogs, so it will be nice to see my girl and her boy.
They always cheer me up. We will play some cards I think and then I will throw something together for our supper., and they can finish off the cake for dessert. I doubt it will be a problem for them!
I have no idea why this is called Spanish Cake. Only that that is its name, and that it is delicious. Its a recipe which I had in my Big Blue Binder for years and years.
So long that I no longer remember where I got it from. But the page is splattered and torn and fading, so you know its a good recipe. Well used.
I love simple butter cakes like this. Simple ingredients, simply put together. Delicious results.
You start by creaming together butter and sugar. You want your butter to be at room temperature, but not melting if you know what I mean. I like to cream it by hand.
That is the way our grandmother's would have done it, by hand, in a ceramic or an enamel bowl with a wooden spoon. In baking creaming is a process whereby you mash/rub together two ingredients (usually sugar and fat) to get a thick, creamy homogenous paste.
This process is what helps the sugar to melt into the batter when making cakes and cookies. You don't want a gritty batter when you are making a cake or a cookie!
If your butter is cold from the fridge, just pop it into the microwave for 10 or 15 seconds. Just don't melt it.
Once you have creamed your sugar and butter together, you can beat in the egg yolk. This smaller version of the cake only takes one egg, and you will need to separate it. I use large free range eggs.
I just use a wooden spoon for that as well. I do confess I use my electric hand mixer to beat the egg white into submission!
Beating egg whites stiff by hand takes forever and I mean that with a capital "F."
FOREVER! I have been there and done that. Your arms get a real workout! Our grandmothers did have hand beaters, that weren't electric, but trust me, even those take a long time! They must have had really big strong muscles!
I like to sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together. That way the baking powder gets evenly mixed into the flour. Then it is a matter of beating the flour into the batter alternately with the milk.
You need to start with and end with flour. Not sure why that is, but its the way it usually is with cakes. The egg white gets folded in last.
Folding is a very precise action when it comes to baking and differs a great deal from stirring, or beating for that matter.
In folding you are combining two ingredient with different textures together to make one homogenous batter. In this case, the cake batter itself, which is thick . . .
And the egg whites which are fluffy and light. I usually begin by stirring in about half of the whipped egg white to loosen the batter somewhat and then folding in the remaining white.
To fold something in you need to make sort of a cutting motion with your spoon, lifting and turning over the batter so as not to knock the air out of the whites. This gives you a much higher rise in your cake and a lighter texture.
This cake has a beautiful moist crumb and texture, and yet is very light. It is flavored highly with cinnamon.
There is a full teaspoon of ground cinnamon in the full sized version, and half a teaspoon in this smaller version.
I baked it in a heavy, 6-inch round, aluminum cake tin. I picked it up at Winner's yesterday. I know I will use it a lot, and if you are wanting to follow my smaller sized recipes, you need to get one also!
In fact I have ordered another one online as it will be the perfect size for making smaller layer cakes. And I do plan on making more small sized recipes in the future as an ongoing thing.
The icing is a very simple make for this. Melt butter and brown sugar together, add some milk, bring it to the boil and then beat in some icing sugar. Easy peasy.
I have often used maple sugar rather than brown sugar with excellent results. And it gives the cake a nice touch of maple flavor. Today I added a few drops of Maple flavoring.
Just spread the icing over the cake and voila! I have always, always added a scattering of chopped toasted walnuts on top myself. I like them and walnuts go very good with maple.
In any case, Spanish Cake for two. Enjoy! Silly me, of course you will! And if you are wanting the full recipe, check it out here.
Spanish Cake (For Two)
Yield: 4 (makes one 6-inch) cake
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 40 Min
A lovely little cake flavored with cinnamon and topped with a lucious maple cream icing.
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 70g of plain flour (1/2 cup)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 60g of butter, at room temperature (1/4 cup)
- 95g of sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, separated
- 60ml milk (1/4 cup)
For the icing:
- 30g butter (1/8 cup)
- 40g of maple sugar (1/4 cup, can use 1/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar)
- 1 TBS milk
- 65g of icing sugar (1/2cup)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter an 6-inch round baking tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Set aside.
- Beat the egg WHITE until stiff and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl. Set aside. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg YOLK.
- Beat in the flour along with the milk making alternate additions. (3 dry and two wet) Mix well. Fold in the egg whites.
- Spread the batter in the prepared baking tin. Bake in the heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top bounces back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The cake should also have begun to pull away from the sides a bit. Remove from the oven.
- Cool in the pan for five minutes then tip out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
- Place the butter for the icing in a saucepan and melt. Add the maple sugar and heat gently over low heat for 2 minutes, until the sugar has melted. Add the milk. Bring to the boil, then remove from the stove and let cool. Beat in the icing sugar and spread onto the cooled cake.
Notes:
I like to sprinkle chopped toasted walnuts on top, but that is the Canadian in me liking the flavor of maple walnut.
Also if you don't have maple sugar and yet still want the flavor of maple, you can add a few drops of maple extract to the melted sugar/butter mixture for the frosting.
My sister and I went shopping up in New Minas this morning. Since lockdown has lifted and we have both had all of our vaccines we feel a bit safer doing so. We had a lovely morning doing sister stuff.
Its nice to just be able to spend time on our own without any men around, talking girl stuff, having a laugh and being able to window shop, etc. without listening to a man huff and puff in the background.
Letting you know they are bored without saying any words. You all know what I am talking about.
First we went to Michaels the craft store. I wanted to pick up some felt to make some Christmas ornaments. I don't like to just sit and watch television in the evenings.
I like to keep my hands busy with something and since I will be decorating a tree from scratch this year I figured there is no time like the present to get started! Since I am also soon going to be getting a kitten, I figure felt ornaments are the safest route to go.
When we had finished there, we hopped over to Winner's/Homesense. I had a gift certificate to use and it just has the best prices in kitchen ware. I am in need of props etc. to use in my food photography.
And a few gadgets as well, and its the best place to get things like that.
I got myself a set of small dessert bowls, and a relish set, both in what is called Dublin Crystal. Made in China so I don't know how fine it is, lol.
I also got a six inch cake tin. I really wanted two, but there was only one. A quarter sheet pan. Some tart tins, chopsticks. A set of egg poachers, some mini utensils and a wide based spatula/egg flipper.
All will come in very handy in any case. I do miss my Poachies from the UK. They were little paper bags to poach eggs in, very similar in looks to the Myleta coffee filters, except on a much smaller scale.
They were the best things for poaching eggs, but never mind, I will get used to these silicone thingies.
Anyways, it was getting rather late by the time we got back to hers and then I got home and I was starving. I had some cooked chicken in the fridge, and I remembered this delicious Chicken salad recipe I had seen in one of my cookbooks.
The cookbook is by Mary Younkin and is entitled, the Weekday Lunches & Breakfasts Cookbook. It has lots of lovely recipes in it. It is a book I had had in the UK and one of the ones I decided to replace here in Canada.
I decided to halve the recipe however. I actually cut it in half yet again to make only one, but am giving you the measurements to make two to three servings.
The recipe is called Dill Pickle Chicken Salad Croissants. The photo in the book looked delicious and the recipe was very simple to make, using only a few ingredients.
Cubed cooked chicken. Check. Chopped spring onions. Check. Diced dill pickles. Check.
A variety of seasonings and spices. Salt, pepper, dried dill weed, garlic powder. Check, check, check, check.
A good mayonnaise. I like Hellman's. I buy the olive oil one here. Its really rich and delicious.
You also need some fresh baby greens, arugula (rocket) and spinach. I adore both of those and am trying to get as much iron into me these days as possible, so any way I can eat it, works well with me.
Finally some fresh crisp Croissants to fill with the delicious salad. I picked up a small bag of two on the way home.
Croissants are always best if you pick them up on the day don't you think? Of course you don't have to use croissants.
Any bread will do. Rye bread would be particularly nice, especially the marbled rye, because of the dill pickles in the salad.
Sour dough, white, whole wheat, any kind of bread really. Just pick your favorite kind. I think large crispy and buttery cathead biscuits would be lovely.
If you aren't doing bread in your diet, then this tasty chicken salad would be lovely spooned over a bed of salad greens, or stuffed into a ripe tomato, with some cold rice or pasta, etc.
It would also be great in a wrap or a pita bread. In short, delicious no matter which way you choose to enjoy it.
Its as simple as stirring everything together. Takes all but five minutes to make. And it is truly delicious.
I loved the dill pickles in this, but then again, I am a real dill pickler lover. When my children were growing up I think I made about 52 quarts of dill pickles every year and they always all got eaten.
I just used plain dills, but you could use the garlic dills if you want. I also chose to use baby dill pickles instead of the larger ones.
The chopped pickles really add a lovely crunch, and a nice flavor to the salad. Some of the juice is also used in the dressing.
Chopped spring onion adds a nice hint of sharpness, a bit of color and some nice crunch. I think if you wanted to you could also add some chopped nuts to this if you wanted to, although I am not sure what kind you would like.
Pistachios perhaps? They are green at any rate!
The dressing is a really simple one. Mayonnaise, dill pickle juice, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Simple. Easy.
Goes together in a flash and all you need to do then is fold in the chicken, pickles and onions. You're done.
All ready to tuck into that moreish croissant on top of those lush greens. Oh boy but this is some good, and I felt very generous.
A chicken salad sandwich should be messy to eat. That's part of the enjoyment I think, don't you? Pass the napkins and enjoy!
Quick, easy and fairly healthy. Shhh . . . don't burst my bubble.
Dill Pickle Chicken Salad Croissants
Yield: 2 - 3
Prep time: 10 MinTotal time: 10 Min
Tender pieces of chicken combined with crisp dill pickle and sharp green onions in a simple dressing to make a delicious sandwich filling. Serve here in croissants, it also works well on its own on a bed of lettuce, or with rye bread, in a wrap, stuffed tomatoes, etc.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (60g) good quality mayonnaise
- 1/2 TBS pickle juice
- 1/4 tsp coarse black pepper
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/3 tsp dried dillweed
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1 1/2 cups (220g) cooked chicken cut into 1/2 inch dice
- 2 medium dill pickles, ends trimmed off and cut into 1/4 inch dice (about 3/4 cup/110g)
- 1 spring onion, washed trimmed and chopped
- 2 to 3 fresh crisp croissants
- a mix of baby arugula and spinach to line the bottom of your croissants
Instructions
- Stir the mayonnaise, pickle juice, pepper, salt, dried dill and garlic together in a bowl. Fold in the chicken, pickles and onions, mixing everything together well.
- Cut your croissants in half lengthwise using a serrated knife. Line the bottoms of the croissants with the greens, then top with the chicken salad, finishing off with the tops of the croissants. Serve immediately.
Notes:
This delicious chicken salad will keep well in the refrigerator in a covered container for up to three days. It is also nice served on a bed of salad greens, without any bread at all, as part of a salad plate.
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