Jumbo blueberry muffins, um yes please!

My goal for this blog is that in order for me to post to my blog, I have to try out a new recipe in order to give a "sneak preview" of it in the current post....the hope is that it will incentivize me to not fall of the blog posting wagon.  So, next blog post will be about Iced Oatmeal Cookies .  Let me just say, this lady has some mad icing and photo styling skills, because the cookies on the website look drastically better than what came out of my kitchen!  They were tasty indeed (Andy said I should definitely never make them again!) but not nearly as gorgeous and perfect looking.

ONTO BLUEBERRY MUFFIIIINNNSS!

Original Jumbo Blueberry Muffins recipe
So again, the photos made these muffins look pretty damn desirable...I by no means crave blueberry muffins, let alone muffins in general (I think the Costco muffins have turned me off to seeking out decent muffins?) But something about the pictures and the idea of making something I'm not familiar with just sounded appealing.  At the bakery I worked at years n years ago, we never made muffins...I guess muffins just ain't cool enough.  Then again, it was a French themed pastry shop, so muffins wouldn't be on the menu.  Although, mini-scones definitely were...that might be something I make again, they're so yummy and luxurious, and fairly easy to make.  Than again, they definitely have to be given away, and Andy's got less than 3 weeks to go in school.  Decisions, decisions...

Alas, I had everything I needed on hand for the muffins (I find myself keeping real buttermilk on hand now, which makes it easier...I do not recommend going the shortcut route and making homemade buttermilk with milk/vinegar or milk/lemon juice combos.  Just ain't the same!)  So I want to stress, pre-heated ovens are key.  My own opinion, but I do not trust it takes a whopping 6-8 minutes for any oven to properly preheat.  Give it 15-20mins easy.  Get an oven thermometer; ~$3 at Tuesday Morning and you'll have happy baked products to show for it.

I like the idea of doing a print screen of the recipe with my edits...I hope y'all do too?  If it works better, I could just copy/paste and re-post as text on here what I did.  If anyone cares or has opinions, let me know :) here's the recipe with edits; for a clean version, go to the print recipe version (however, the link has been temperamental for me!)

So, as you can see from my edits, I did not stray much from the original recipe...all the ingredients stayed true, the only modifications made were in the steps and bake times.  I didn't want to use muffin liners; the picture made it look so cute and fresh out the tin!  I wish I had coarse sugar on hand (you don't need that fancy stuff from the store; grab a few packets of Sugar in the Raw from a café, it would've been perfect!) but instead I used granulated and it was definitely a nice touch.  If/when I make again, I am going to go the extra step with the sanding sugar.

Anyway, the recipe is straight forward and hard to mess up.  I was worried I would overmix, overfold, etc. the ingredients, but from what I can tell, I didn't.  I have a yellow-handed 2oz. ice cream scoop that I used for the batter and it was the perfect amount of batter per muffin.  I was nervous they'd turn out gi-normous since I got 12 vs. 15-16 muffins, but it worked out thankfully.  I was a little confused on the bake times, but I checked it after they'd been in 5min @ 425F + 13min @ 375F and it looked like they needed about 5 more minutes.  The tops were just a little wet and jiggly, with no real color yet.  When I checked 5min later, they had some color, and looked set, so out they came to cool.  I waited patiently to try...I didn't want to wait the recommended 10 minutes in the pan before enjoying.  I think I made it to minute 5?  Eh.  I split one with Andy and it was really good...ample blueberries in every bite.  Very happy muffin maker :)

Well I made these on Tuesday eve last week and as I mentioned in last week's blog, the other 11 went to our respective workplaces Wednesday AM.  Andy took 6, me 5; he had a cute story to share.  He had left one on a friend's desk prior to school starting, and when the co-worker friend arrived to work, he saw the muffin and said he'd been saved.  Turns out the co-worker is on a shake-for-breakfast kinda diet I suppose (I know I'm getting the story wrong) and so of course he was still hungry when he'd arrived to work.  Thankfully the muffin was perfectly timed and he now had a complete breakfast.  As for my work, the muffins slowly left the plate throughout the morning..it doesn't help that we have like maybe 20 people in my office.  Regardless, I ended up eating like at least a full one since I didn't want them to go to waste.

So, if you're interested in blueberry muffins, I think these ones are pretty good and I would definitely make again.  I don't know how they size up to some of the other recipes out there since I'm not a muffin maker nor connoisseur!  Seems like muffins are passé so I don't blame folks if you're not wowed, but it was nice to try something new.

Happy Hump Day!  Halfway to Friday, yahoo!