These lemon scented, purple spotted muffins are sure to be a hit at your next picnic or child’s birthday party. Dress it up with cream, or a simple dusting of powdered sugar, and these babies are ready to go!
Today saw me sitting in front of my laptop for pretty much the entire day researching yummy food ideas. Ended up watching the entire series of Nigella’s Christmas Cooking, and that got me in the mood for baking. That woman is contageous, I tell you! The things she comes up with is just pure genius. But more about Nigella, her food inspirations and Christmas another time.
So I promised R I would bake him some delicious blueberry and lemon muffins today when he got back from work. I have been meaning to repeat this recipe for a while now and its been long overdue. On his part he made sure I kept my word by sending me reminders as the day went by, on MSN.
When I first made this recipe last year, I made it a whole cake. It wasn’t bad, but it lacked a certain creamy lusciousness … and it was a tad too sweet. Did some research online and it seems the secret to luscious moist cake is sour cream! Who knew?? Maybe its just my ignorance about the world of baking, but I never thought sour cream would be a logical part to a baking equation. Taa-daa! So you learn something new everyday, fabulous!
Cake of the past. Look at all those smooshed berries ... not a good look.
So I grab a piece of paper and scribble down the ingredients, hop on my pink bicycle and off I go. The weather today was simply incredible. Bright blue sky up above, golden sunshine kissing every surface …. oh this is the life! I have come to the conclusion that I cannot and will not understand Dutch weather. Only last month it was as wet and miserably cold as our neighbour across the channel ~ England. I thought oh well, it is officially autumn, so expect weather conditions to go downhill from here; and then this! Those all-knowing, semi-clairvoyant people up in the weather bureau have declared that this glorious weather is to hang around for the next 10 days yet. I couldn’t be happier. It takes me about 25 mins to cycle to the supermarket in the city, and I relished every moment of it.
Ingredient list for this recipe is unbelievably straight forward.
- 330 g flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 120 g fine granulated sugar
- 125 g butter, at room temp
- 2 tbsp veggie oil
- 2 eggs
- 120 mls whole milk
- 250 g sour cream
- 350 g frozen blueberries
- juice of half a lemon
- rind of whole lemon
I had most of the stuff at home anyway so all I really came to the city to pick up was sour cream, lemons and some frozen blueberries. Back home the baking began immediately.
The ingredients list
As always, pre-heat the oven to 180 – 190°C. Prep baking tray by lining a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cups. I didn’t have muffin cups (which really annoyed me) so I had to make do with the shallower cupcake papers …. uugh! I managed to get 24 cupcake sized muffins with this recipe.
- In a mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar, on medium, until light and creamy. Use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.
- Add the first egg and continue to beat until incorporated. Then add in the second egg along with the oil. Beat again until well incorporated. Don’t for get to scrape down the sides of the bowl if you are using a stand mixer ~ you want all the butter and sugar crystals to be fully and thoroughly blended in with the eggs.
- Now add in the lemon juice, lemon rind, sour cream and milk to the mix, and fold it in using a spatula or wooden spoon.
- In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients : Flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Then sift half of it into the egg and butter mixture. Fold to combine.
- Now toss in the other half of the flour along with the frozen blueberries, and fold to combine. Do not over mix the batter. It is completely okay if you have some lumps but be careful not to smoosh or burst the berries. What you aim to achieve is a batter that is thick with a dropping consistancy. By the way this has got to be one of the BEST tasting cake batter on the planet! Was very tempted to skip the baking process and eat the batter straight out of the bowl. You have been warned.
*Tip #1 : Using frozen berries as opposed to fresh or room temp ones ensure that they are not as fragile, and won’t “bleed” into your cake batter, turning it a brilliant purple. Also, frozen berries will cook much slower in the oven and you will have nice, perfectly formed globules of berries sitting on top of your muffins when you take them out of the oven.
*Tip #2 : I read somewhere that it is a good idea, if you are adding fruit or chocolate chips to cake batter, to lightly coat them in a bit of flour before adding them to the mix. This will ensure they don’t sink to the bottom, and you will get an even distribution of fruit / chocolate chips throughout your cake.
6. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out gorgeous dollops of this wonderful lemony scented batter onto your prepared tray.
7. Pop them into the pre-heated oven and bake for 30 mins. They will be kinda soft when they are fresh out of the oven. Just leave them to cool for 20 mins and they will be ready for devouring. I like mine plain, but R likes his with a serving of cream on the side. A light dusting of powdered sugar wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
So try it out and let me know what you think by leaving me a comment or two. Until next time.
5 comments
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Natalie
October 12, 2011 at 10:39 am (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Ooooh yum! I’ve been drooling over this all morning. I really wish I could bake so I could make these muffins and eat em!
bubviv
October 12, 2011 at 11:00 am (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Well they can easily be made and brought into the office one week. These are actually exceptionally yummy. When I first tried them I think I ate 4.
Ime
March 31, 2013 at 7:15 pm (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Hey Viv,
Tried this recipe of yours today with the hope that they will turn out as beautiful as yours! They were delicious! 😉
Problem that I faced is : the blending in of the frozen blueberries (even when I poured them in the flour right after taking them out of the freezer) proved to be very difficult. Either the other half of the flour mixture didnt get evenly mixed with the batter or the whole batter turned bright violet. 🙁
What to do??
bubviv
March 31, 2013 at 9:59 pm (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Thanks for trying out my recipe and letting me know!
Sorry to hear that you had issues with the batter tho. When I make these I toss the frozen berries lightly in the flour with my fingers. The berries should be frozen solid when you do this. Then chuck everything into the rest of the cake batter and stir gently with a large spoon, like a wide rubber spatula or a regular rice paddle. I hope you weren’t using an electric mixer for this process.
The problem could also be the berries themselves. Were they whole to begin with or did they already have skin tears when you took them out from the box? Did they look distorted or perfectly round in shape? Good berries should be whole, and come out frozen in individual pieces.
About getting an even mix to the batter … DON’T. Mix in the flour + berries just enough to bring it all together. It shouldn’t matter that there are bits of dry flour or small lumps as these will cook out in the oven. A good muffin batter is never over-mixed into a smooth pancake-like consistency. When you over mix you run the risk of tearing the skin on the berries, allowing the juices to bleed out into your muffin mix.
I hope this helps. 🙂
Ime
April 1, 2013 at 8:25 am (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Wow, thanks for the fast response! 🙂
Well, it’s not the blueberries: they were solid and round when I took them out of the freezer. It’s the part where I place the berries in the other half of the flour mix and tried to add them into the rest of the mixture with a silicon spatula… I might have probably tried to fold them all together a tad too hard. ;p
So next time, I’ll just add the berries in the flour, shift them out, mix up the rest of the batter then add in the berries last very slowly. Is that right?
Oh yes, my husband loooooooves this recipe. 🙂 He says that it’s much softer and less dry than the other recipes I tried, which is great! Thanks for sharing, Viv.
Lemon Blueberry Streusel Cake » Food Flurries...
August 16, 2016 at 9:55 pm (UTC 1) Link to this comment
[…] lemon blueberry cake is a variation of my previous recipe – Lemon Blueberry Muffins – with added crunch from the help of a streusel topping. This added an interesting dimension […]