Muffin Mayhem! (Part 1)

Muffin Mayhem (Triple-Berry Edition)

Today is my dad’s birthday, he wanted muffins for breakfast; so earlier, I made my triple-berry muffins, and we all loved them….

Then later….

I made even more muffins

Chocolate muffins

Yumyumyumyumyum!

But let’s start with the berry muffins :)

It’s important to note that every time I bake things, I always change the recipe up the next time.

Case in point, these muffins. This my third time baking them, and they are considerably different than the ones I first experimented with.  But that’s just me perfecting my goodies!

Likewise, this time around I didn’t use any whole wheat flower, or flax seeds (I usually do) because my mom can’t eat those sort of things, and thus had until today, been unable to revel in the muffins everyone was raving about….

So, being the kind and loving (pah) daughter that I am, I used plain white flour, and cornstarch as the egg replacer instead of my beloved flax seeds. (Cornstarch is weeeeird; so weird, that I don’t like it, haha)

Anywho, let’s get started.

First things first: DO NOT PREHEAT YOUR OVEN, not yet at least. There is something much much much more important that you need to do!

Mix these together (you’ll be happy you did)

Take one cup of raspberries (heaping cup is much preferred)

And one cup of blueberries

And one cup of black berries (lol, see a patern?)

And place in a small/medium sauce pan over medium/low heat with sweetner of your choice.

I used ginger syrup which I found at World Market and it is so awesome that I am going to use it whenever I can from now on. I like it because it was ridiculously cheap (like two bucks I think) and it reminds me a lot of honey.

So take the sweetner of your choosing and eyeball about how much you want to use; don’t drown the poor things, just helping the release of their natural yummyness a bit.

Stir em around, and notice how juicy they’re becoming already… let them sit there while mixing the other stuff, and feel free to turn the heat up to medium/high in a few minutes to get it nice a bubbly. Act like you’re making jam.

Now you can preheat your oven to 385

Then, mix together the following

6 c. minus 3 tbs all purpose flour (I usually do 4 c. flour and 2 c. whole wheat)

2tsps baking soda (haha, while typing this I realized that I totally left the baking soda out this time around… woops)

4 tsps baking powder

Heavy pinch of salt (mmmmmmmh, sodium does my heart good)

And set aside

Then, whisk together the following beauties

2 c. sugar

1 c. vegetable oil

2 cap-fulls of vanilla (honestly, I just dump some in till I think there’s enough… I am so professional)

Your egg replacer (I usually use 5 tbs of ground flaxseed whisked with 6 tbs of water, but today I used about 2 ½ tbs cornstarch whisked with 3 tbs of water… like I said, it was really weird, and I don’t recommend it. Stick with flaxseeds, they’re loads healthier anyway)

2 c. vegan yogurt (any kind will do. I’ve even used coconut milk yogurt and it was yummy. Likewise, any flavor will do. I’ve vanilla but it was too plain for my preference, so now I use berry flavored)

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat together

I know muffin recipes are always telling you to “be careful not to over mix the batter! The world will end if you over mix the batter even just a teeny-weensy-intsy-bintsy-little-bit!” and for every other muffin recipe, they are totally correct.

However, these muffins are some bad bad boys, and they need some sense beat into them.

So beat the heck out of them, and don’t stop, even if they start to beg.

See how thick that is?

These are some dense, manly muffins… no crumbly, air puffed girly muffins!

Now add about 2 cups of blueberries

Make sure to leave about a handful of blueberries though!

And “fold” into the batter

It was also at this point that I realized I had a ton of raspberries and blackberries left over, so I folded those in too

Just make sure to leave a handful of each

Now, grease your muffin pans

I am in love with my ginormous muffin pans!

See the difference?

Mhmm, I live in Texas, and only large, Texas-sized muffins are good enough for me!

Pour/scoop in the muffin batter and fill the cups about ¼ of the way full

Now, your berries on the stove should be oh so thick and scrumptious looking, stir a couple times more, getting all the good stuff off the bottom

And then spoon a heaping spoonful on top of each muffin

You can use up all the berry jam, since this only made me enough for my six large muffins

Then, pour more batter on top till the cups are pretty much full (mine where full)

Now, combine these

1 c. granola

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. packed brown sugar

Pinch salt

And 6 tbs of cold earth balance

You want this to be all crumbly like a pie crust before you press it down into the pan

Now sprinkle it over your muffins, don’t be stingy

And place one of each berry on top

Bake for about 20-25 minutes (depending on what size muffin pans you use)

Make sure you let this cool in the pan for a good ten minutes before taking them out, because if you don’t this might happen to you

Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but definitely felt like I was eating a cobbler, not a muffin

And be patient when taking them out of the pan, these are gourmet muffins, and thus deserve your extra love and patience

If all goes well, they should come out intact and beautiful

Enjoy!

Look at that filling!

"May I have a muffin?"