Ingredients
1 stick (1/2 cup) of butter, room temperature (add 1/4 tsp salt if you use unsalted butter)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
spice of choice - e.g. ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, lemon zest
fruit for topping - e.g. berries, plums, apples
Directions
Cream the soft butter into the sugar. Add the eggs, mix well. Add flour, baking powder, mix thoroughly. It will be a pretty thick. Dollop it into a round cake pan lined with parchment (mine's 9 inches, makes for a thin-ish cake around 2 inches high). Spread it out evenly but it doesn't need to push into the edges or be perfectly flat - it will spread and puff during baking.
Dust with your spice of choice. I like a little ground ginger for warmth and mystery, personally; it goes great with blueberries, and with plums. Top with your fruit of choice in a pleasing arrangement. This cake can take a lot of fruit. I've made this with blueberries mixed with chopped rhubarb, delicious. Black plums cut into eights and arranged in a fan, also delicious. Would likely work with frozen raspberries, pears, figs, or peaches. If your fruit is on the sour side, you may want to dust the top with extra sugar. I usually don't because I like the tart pockets of cooked fruit.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 min. The batter will rise up and gorgeously enfold the fruit as it bakes. The middle has a tendency to finish baking in the last 5 minutes, so be sure the middle is fully set before you set it out to cool. Best to take it out of the pan when still warm.
The cake is substantial but not heavy and has a simplicity that really sets off fresh summer fruit. It almost has a cornmeal-like texture, despite having no cornmeal in it at all.
July 22, 2020
July 20, 2020
Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
5 tbsp butter (add 1/4 tsp salt if you use unsalted butter)
1 egg
3/4 cup sour cream (can sub yogurt but full fat sour cream is better)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (can sub zest of half a lemon)
1/2 cup sugar
Dry:
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries
Directions
After three tries, I think I've finally got this recipe down. I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe to being with, but her instructions for the yogurt version came out pretty stiff and dry on my first try. The second try, I added a splash of milk to thin the batter slightly and it worked better. The third time, I only had 1/2 cup of yogurt so I put in 1/4 cup sour cream as well. That was the game changer. Full fat sour cream has about 10 times the fat as plain yogurt (14% versus 1.4%). Fat is the answer. MUCH more tender and yummy muffin. So here we go!
Melt the butter. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and combine well. The spices are up to you but I think ginger and blueberries are yummy together. Stir in the sugar as soon as you measure it in - if you leave it, it can clump up.
Dust in baking powder and baking soda. Mix. Gently fold in flour and blueberries - don't overmix here. The batter should be pretty stiff - certainly stiff enough to hold the blueberries in place. If it feels like you're mixing cement, you may need a splash of milk to thin it.
Portion the batter out into a paper-lined muffin tin. Deb of Smitten Kitchen says it makes 9 standard muffins but I get 16 little muffins (or I fill a 12-tray and stick the leftover batter into a mini loaf pan).
I always have to pry the batter out and sort of mound it up. You can go over the lip of the paper liner. It will settle a little in baking but not a lot. I try to sort of push the batter down a little to fill the bottom of the paper liner.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Tops should be toasty and a toothpick should prick clean. If you put in a mini loaf pan with extra batter, leave that in 5-10 more minutes.
These muffins are best hot out of the oven. They taste a bit scone-like and dry the next day but revive nicely in the toaster oven and taste magnificent with a smear of butter.
BC has amazing blueberries so I've been making this recipe with fresh. Deb says you can also make this recipe with frozen. She also likes to sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar for extra crunch and sweetness; I usually skip it.
5 tbsp butter (add 1/4 tsp salt if you use unsalted butter)
1 egg
3/4 cup sour cream (can sub yogurt but full fat sour cream is better)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (can sub zest of half a lemon)
1/2 cup sugar
Dry:
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries
Directions
After three tries, I think I've finally got this recipe down. I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe to being with, but her instructions for the yogurt version came out pretty stiff and dry on my first try. The second try, I added a splash of milk to thin the batter slightly and it worked better. The third time, I only had 1/2 cup of yogurt so I put in 1/4 cup sour cream as well. That was the game changer. Full fat sour cream has about 10 times the fat as plain yogurt (14% versus 1.4%). Fat is the answer. MUCH more tender and yummy muffin. So here we go!
Melt the butter. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and combine well. The spices are up to you but I think ginger and blueberries are yummy together. Stir in the sugar as soon as you measure it in - if you leave it, it can clump up.
Dust in baking powder and baking soda. Mix. Gently fold in flour and blueberries - don't overmix here. The batter should be pretty stiff - certainly stiff enough to hold the blueberries in place. If it feels like you're mixing cement, you may need a splash of milk to thin it.
Portion the batter out into a paper-lined muffin tin. Deb of Smitten Kitchen says it makes 9 standard muffins but I get 16 little muffins (or I fill a 12-tray and stick the leftover batter into a mini loaf pan).
I always have to pry the batter out and sort of mound it up. You can go over the lip of the paper liner. It will settle a little in baking but not a lot. I try to sort of push the batter down a little to fill the bottom of the paper liner.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Tops should be toasty and a toothpick should prick clean. If you put in a mini loaf pan with extra batter, leave that in 5-10 more minutes.
These muffins are best hot out of the oven. They taste a bit scone-like and dry the next day but revive nicely in the toaster oven and taste magnificent with a smear of butter.
BC has amazing blueberries so I've been making this recipe with fresh. Deb says you can also make this recipe with frozen. She also likes to sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar for extra crunch and sweetness; I usually skip it.
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