Blueberry Corn Muffins

Over the past few years, I have really come to appreciate cornmeal.  Once upon a time, the only use I knew it could have was for polenta.  While I don't dislike polenta, I would never go out of my way to eat it.  However, ever since I was introduced to cornbread, I have made sure to always keep some cornmeal in my pantry.  After all, you never know when you might have a cornbread emergency.

These corn muffins were born out of a cornbread recipe I used to swear by.  The recipe is a good one, but I decided that the bread it produced was too sweet to accompany dinner so I started using a new recipe.  This one was simply too cake-like to eat with a salad.  Then, the other day, I found myself craving a sweet corn bread so I went back to my old recipe, made some changes, and baked up some corn muffins for breakfast.  I don't doubt that these will be gracing our breakfast plates again at some point in the future.

Blueberry Corn Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins
Adapted from Food.com

1/2 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp canola oil
3 tbsp melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup milk
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tin with liners or grease the pan.
2. In a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together oil, butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla.
4. Pour wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir to combine.  Be careul not to overmix the dough.
5. Stir in blueberries.
6. Pour batter into muffin tins.  They will look over-full; however, these muffins don't rise as much as many other recipes do, so they will be fine in terms of size.
7. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted through the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Calories: 201 per muffin

Individual Berry Crisps

I love pies, crisps, crumbles, and cobblers.  In fact, I love them a little too much because they don't last very long around here.  We won't even discuss the brief lifespan of the last cherry pie I bought. 

Fortunately, I have found a way to continue enjoying crisps without overindulging.  I make the crisp mix, put it in a container in the fridge, and then I use what I need to make my husband and I each one 1/2 cup serving of dessert.  Not only does it keep us both from going back for seconds, but it also means that our dessert is always freshly baked.  Truly a win-win situation.

Another bonus with this recipe is that there isn't any sugar in with the fruit so the only sugar present comes from the crumb mix.  I know many people do sweeten their fruit, but I personally don't find it necessary and I would even go so far as to say that I prefer mine unsweetened.

Individual Berry Crisps
Yield: 6-4 oz crisps

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp butter, diced
2 3/4 cups fruit (e.g. mixed berries, cubed peaches, cubed nectarines, etc.)

1. Mix together flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
2. Rub butter into the flour mixture until the texture is that of coarse meal.
3. You can either store this in the fridge to be used as needed or you can use it all immediately.
4. When you are ready to bake crisps, preheat oven to 375.
5. Butter 4 oz ramekins and fill with fruit, leaving a little bit of space for the topping.
6. Spoon about 1/6th of the crumb mixture into each ramekin and pack it in lightly.
7. Place in oven on top of a cookie sheet so that any fruit leaking over doesn't fall onto the bottom of your oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes. 
8. Let cool and serve warm or at room temperature.

Calories: 187 per serving (using blueberries)

Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake

It has been a while.  Okay, it has been more than a while; it has been three months--make that a very busy three months.  First my husband and I had all of our extended family come into town and then I got swamped with work and a certain someone became mobile, which of course only made it harder to get work done. 

However, I am now back and I have decided that I need to make a few changes to this blog.  While I do love to bake and I do love to eat what I bake, I do pay a lot of attention to what I eat and generally try to keep both sugar and fat on the lower end of the spectrum.  In order to keep myself accountable, I almost always calculate the nutrition information for each serving of my recipes and keep a rough mental note of how many of my calories each day come from good, wholesome, nutritious food and how of them are essentially empty calories.  In order to help other people do the same, I am going to start including the calorie count for every recipe. 

Now, does this mean that I am going to stop posting fattening and delicious treats?  Absolutely not.  I believe that anything can be enjoyed in moderation.  The nutrition information helps me with the moderation-end of things by making me consider everything that I put into my body.  Of course, I do adapt some recipes by reducing sugar, substituting whole grain flour, and reducing fat, but I will mention it when I do that.

The other major change I want to make is including more non-dessert items.  Personally, I am always scanning other sites for dinner ideas and so it is time to give back by sharing mine.

That said, today, what I have for you is yet another dessert item.  If you are a fan of combining lemon and blueberries, this cake is for you.  This recipe comes together in almost no time at all and it yields a luscious cake with a moist  light crumb and it is loaded with fresh blueberries.   I like it so much that I anxiously await berry season each year just so that I can make it, so I think you should make it too.

Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake
Yield: 24 slices
Source:  Bon Appetit, December 1979 (via my mother-in-law)

5 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cups butter, cold and diced into about 20 cubes
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
4 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tsp. vanilla
Juice of one lemon
3 cups of fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease and flour a 10" bundt or other pans.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and lemon rind.
4. Place mixture of dry ingredients in the bowl of your food processor and add the butter.  Pulse the blade until the mixture has a coarse texture such as when making a pie crust or biscuits.  You might have to do this stage in two batches as the volume of ingredients will be too large for most food processors. 
5. In a small bowl, beat eggs and then stir in milk, vanilla, and lemon juice.
6. Transfer the flour mixture to a large bowl.
7. Stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.  Stir just until they are combined, being careful not to over mix the batter.
8. Fold in the blueberries.
9. Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for 80-90 minutes; until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
10. Place pan on wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.
11. Remove cake from pan and place it directly on the rack to cool completely before cutting into the cake.

Calories:  222 per slice (24 slices per cake)