Blueberry Muffin

An original attempt this morning is a ginger butter cake.  Unfortunately I don’t have crystalised ginger and grand Marnier at home.  So, it has to be something.  Huh, fresh blueberry at home!  Why not trying out another blueberry muffin recipe?  Here it goes!  Blueberry muffin from Thomas Lui, a winner of various pastry competitions.  After years of serving in big hotels, he now has his own pastisserie, Thomas Trillion.

100g Butter
180g sugar (90% of original recipe)
2 eggs
150g milk
300g flour (I used half plain and half cake flour)
10g baking powder
2g salt
100g blueberry

 

Preheat the oven at 180C

Beat softened butter and sugar till creamy

Mix in eggs in two batches

Add sieved flour, baking powder and salt into the butter mixture

Add milk and mix well till smooth

Add blueberry

Divide the muffin batter between 16 muffin cups

Bake for 25 tyo 30 minutes

Let cool for a few minutes

That’s my breakfast enjoyed with my parents

Buttermilk Spice Muffin, Mimi’s Cafe

Now, buttermilk muffin is a memory of Denver and Reutlingen stays.  Mimi’s Cafe is famous for its giant size and delicious muffins, of all flavours.  The most beloved are buttermilk and blueberry.  I love the buttermilk for its wonderful spices, heavenly nutmeg and cinnamon. 

Reutlingen

But I am no longer in Denver anymore.  So, homemade buttermilk spice muffins.  The first bake took place in Reutlingen, a small town about 35 kilometres away from Stuttgart.  It’s a long awaiting visit to my friend, Maryam and her family.

Muffin Batter
180g sugar                             115g unsalted butter
3 eggs                                     280g flour
2 teaspoons baking soda             1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon               150g buttermilk
1 tablespoon buttermilk, additional         

Nut Topping
55g sugar       80g finely chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon    1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Heat oven to 180°C.

Cream the sugar and butter together with an electric mixer until it is thoroughly blended. 

Add eggs and beat slightly.

Add sieved flour together with the baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add the flour and buttermilk alternatively to the first mixture, and mix by hand until smooth.

Make the nut topping by combining all the Nut Topping ingredients together

Fill each cup ¾ full of batter.

Divide the nut topping on top of the batter among all cups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bake at 180°C for 20 to 25 minutes until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out dry.

Scones

It was a Saturday in Milan, a relaxed one. A good breakfast gave power to the day.  Easy and quick.   I made this a few times with a recipe from Thomas Lui 呂德輝.  It’s welcome by all sorts of people: Chinese, Caucasian, BBC, etc.  A sumptuous breakfast with the heart warming scones, then we were set up to visit a lake in Switzerland, Lugano.  Very nice!

340g flour    
16g baking powder
pinch of salt
85g unsalted butter
85g sugar
50g egg
112g milk

Preheat oven to 220C

Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar

Add egg, butter and milk and blend until smooth.  Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Roll out the dough to about 15mm thick

Cut round shape of scones with a cookie mould

Layout the scones on parchment paper.  Allow space between for circulation. 

Brush milk on top.  Bake for 12-15 minutes.

A wonderful breakfast!

 

Blueberry Muffin, Mimi’s Cafe

It’s 6 years’ ago when I was first in the United States, for work.  Our motherly colleague Terersa Morris referred us to try the gorgeous muffin from Mimi’s Cafe. Wow, it’s huge and good.  We took it home for our breakfast the next day.  6 years….  around Kurt’s birthday, I wanna try making the blueberry muffin to celebrate his birthday.  Au Ou, I forgot the baking powder.  No worry, it’s good.  Blueberries exploded during the baking.  It erupted and splashed.  It’s like purple river.  Admirable!  Take a look, the muffine is full with blueberries.  Yummy!  Happy Birthday to Kurt!!!!!

55g butter                 100g sugar                     
1 large egg                1/2 teaspoon vanilla         
1 tsp baking powder        1/8 teaspoon salt
1.25 cups blueberries      110g all-purpose flour       
4 Tbsp milk

For Topping
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar, mixed with 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Heat oven to 170°C

Grease 4 muffin cups

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until pale and fluffy.

Add egg and beat well

Beat in vanilla, baking powder and salt.

Fold in half of flour then half of milk into batter; repeat.

Fold in blueberries.

Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle topping onto each muffin.

Bake 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch.

Blueberry Muffin, Roland Mesnier

While searching for dessert recipes at the Internet, it came across a book,  Dessert University, written by a previous White House dessert chef, Roland Mesnier.  Very lucky I can borrow it from the public library.  It’s a thick book with all kinds of cakes and desserts.  Photos are rare.  But the book is impressive. 

I wished to try the blueberry recipe, described as very light by separating the egg yolk and whites.  It gives an extra lift in the oven.    The wish woke me up in the early morning.  By 8am I could already enjoy the great muffin with fresh brewed latte.

Here is the recipe with my own adaptation:

110g flour (half all-purpose and cake flour)   
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large egg whites    
1 large egg yolk
70g blueberries    
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoon butter milk
1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
60g softened butter    
45g sugar    
Cinnamon sugar  salt

I skipped 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest and 1/4 cup coasely chopped pecan because I did not have them handy.  One can add 2 teaspoon lemon juice to the milk to become buttermilk.  Let’s sit for 30 minutes.

Yield: 6 muffins          Oven: 200°C

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt.

Combine the buttermilk, egg yolk and vanilla.

Beat the butter with half of the sugar until fluffy.  Mix 1/4 of the buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture.  Alternate with 1/4 of the flour mixture.  Repeat three more times with the remaining buttermilk and flour mixtures.

Beat the egg whites until just about to form soft peaks.  Blend in the half portion sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

Fold the blueberries into the batter.  Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. 

Divide the batter among the muffin tins and bake for 5 minutes.  Sprinkle the tops with the Cinnamon sugar and bake until a cake pin inserted into the centre comes out clean.  It’s about 8 to 10 minutes.

Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Then invert them onto a wire rack, turn them right side up and allow to cool completely.

Blueberry Cornmeal Muffin

Blueberry cornmeal muffin with berry apple yoghurt drink

I wanted to try cornmeal muffin for sometime.  With stock of blueberry I made it this morning companied with a yoghurt drink made with strawberries, blueberries, apple and homemade yoghurt.  It’s awesome!  

85g cake flour
35g plain flour
35g cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
50g brown sugar
1 large egg
125g milk
45g butter, melted
50g fresh blueberries
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon for sprinkle on top 

Preheat oven to 200°C.  Grease 5 floral baking cup. 

Mix the dry ingredients except sugar and cinnamon and sift. 

Whisk the egg, sugar, butter and milk.  Fold in the blueberries and flour mixture. 

Fill the baking cup 3/4 fill.  Bake for 15 – 18 minutes until a testing pin comes up clean. 

Cool the muffin for a few minutes, demould and serve.  Bon appetit! 

Ginger Pear Muffin

Ginger Pear Muffin

I like ginger.  It has a unique fragrance and warms one up.  The Ginger Pear Muffin from Essentials of Baking appeals to me. Why not try a half portion for a great breakfast to start a nice Saturday? 

Ginger pear muffins are easy to make: simple ingredients, easy mixing and short baking time. Chopped pear adds crisp and freshness.  It is a good switch from blueberry and chocolate.

Pear ginger muffin

I recalled the days working in Denver, back to 2005.   My colleague, Teresa recommended the buttermilk and blueberry muffins from Mimi Cafe.  They were gorgeous.    I miss Teresa from time to time, though we are no longer colleagues whilst thousand miles apart.   She is a motherly person, very gentle, caring and adorable.   

The muffin also reminds me about Kurt.  We joined the company the same time and worked 6 weeks together in Denver.  He is my teacher on SQL and a good friend.   Wish that both of them are living well and enjoy life.

Cinnamon Roll

cinnamon roll

I thought that I would stop bakery for a while upon my return from Milan because it would be a while to return and  prepare meals.  But it came out differently.   I flipped Essentials of Baking (Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking: Recipes and Techniques for Succcessful Home Baking (Williams Sonoma Essentials), borrowed from the public library last night.   My attention was kept by the cinnamon rolls, a good alternative for scone as breakfast.  The drive to delight friends with my sweet was only temporarily hidden.  It’s always there.  I prepared the dough for fermentation within the hour between getting up and leaving home for the church service.  Wow!

It took more than 2 hours to double the volume in this winter day.  I prepared the filling by mixing egg, cinnamon and sugar.  Then I roll up the batter into a log and cut into rolls, let it rise for another 30-40 minutes.  In the meantime, I found out that the recipe calls for butter, cinnamon and sugar.  The egg is for brushing after the second rise.  No wonder why the filling was so runny.    Don’t be surprised by my absent mind.  I forgot to put money in my wallet on the first day that I resumed work.  Never mind, let’s continue and see how it turned out.  The rolls were baked at 200°C for 25 minutes.    Gradually, the colour turned golden brown.  The air lingered a sweet smell.  The finishing is to mix icing sugar, double cream and vanilla extract.  Oh, it’s yummy!  Nevertheless, I will give it a second trial by adding back the butter as the filling.

A quick look of the ingredients (my adapted version):

Dough:
1.5 teaspoon yeast                       80g milk, warm          37g sugar          1 large egg          280g plain flour          2 teaspoon salt
Grated zest of one orange          40g butter, at room temperature

Filling:
30g sugar          1 teaspoon cinnamon          20g melted butter (overlooked)          1/3 egg, beaten

Vanilla Glaze:
15g icing sugar, sifted          40g heavy cream          1/3 teaspoon vanilla essence