I posted my cooking bucket list and over a FULL MONTH later, I finally tackled one of the foods I wanted to try making for the first time! I chose to start simply with blueberry muffins, mostly because I took a craving for them one day and couldn’t get them out of my mind. I was so worried about fucking them up because I was almagamating two recipes together to try and get exactly what I wanted.
The blueberry muffins yielded aren’t perfect but as a first attempt, I’m so happy with how they ended up!
In my original cooking bucket list post I mentioned that getting the cake to be that usually off-putting blue-grey colour was vital. The muffins I get from Morrisons are like that, and those are honestly my favourites. To accomplish the colour, I decided to make a blueberry compote to stir through my batter.
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To be honest, I’ve been looking at pictures of blueberry muffins that are just normal muffins with blueberries mixed in, and I really just thought they looked sad. So, I was trying hard to stay away from that.
I want this recipe to end up being really my own, so I started with a basic muffin recipe from BBC Good Food and ignored the step that told me to put chocolate chips or dried food into the batter as a mix in. I made the batter as instructed (being sure to leave little lumps, not getting a completely smooth batter) and also added lemon zest into it, which really brightened it up.
For the blueberry compote, I combined around a cup of blueberries, a quarter cup of water, 100g of sugar, some vanilla extract and a half teaspoon of baking powder as well as some lemon juice and zest. I brought that to a boil all together and simmered it for a while – preferably I would have done it longer than I did but, I’ll be honest, I was impatient! And I wanted my muffins!
So, I had my batter made and I wanted my compote to cool a little longer, to see if it would thicken, and also so I wouldn’t scramble the eggs in the batter. I steamed in some of the compote a little at a time to integrate it smoothly. I ended up sieving the compote because the liquid was so colourful, and I didn’t want too much! I strained the liquid and added the rest of the blueberry remains.
I was so sure not to overmix my batter before adding in my liquid, then it struck me as I stirred through the compote that I was in danger of overmixing. Next time I’ll be sure to add my compote in earlier just so there’s more air and lumps in the batter.
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The compote really coloured the batter exactly how I wanted it to, so I was really pleased. It actually added so much colour, turning it from a striking lavender to the blue I wanted. It struck me then that the additional liquid in the batter might affect the baking, and maybe it did, but they still turned out ok so I can’t complain too much.
I had a little bit of lemon juice leftover so I took what little icing sugar I had left and made a not great glaze. It wasn’t fantastic but not bad either – just far too thin! I think next time I made these muffins I’d like to try the glaze again but make it a little thicker, because the lemon flavour can really brighten the cake up.
Obviously I had to try a muffin the second it came out of the oven, and I was, for a minute, really afraid that the flavour was really weak. But cooling definitely helped strengthen the flavour, somehow.
Next time I try this recipe, I think I’ll play around, maybe by replacing the oil I used as a fat with melted butter instead, to add some extra richness. I want to thicken my compote a little more for sure; not doing so this time was down to my own excitement and impatience.
Any tips for improving my blueberry muffins is welcome – but for now, I’m thrilled with how they turned out for my first attempt! I can’t wait to improve on this recipe and really make them my own.
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