Kristin's Cravings

This past Saturday in baking class, if you remember from Baking School – Weeks 6,7 & 8, we made these blueberry muffins that were to die for! Of course, being the chocolate lover that I am, I went home and tried out the recipe with some chocolate chips and I have to say, they came out pretty amazing! This recipe is so quick and simple that maybe (I can’t say for certain because I don’t want to get the 16 people’s hope up that are coming!) I’ll make them Thanksgiving morning.

My family is famous for their breakfasts. Every Sunday morning growing up I’d wake up to the smell of my mom cooking bacon and eggs and my dad whipping up pancakes and waffles and before I could even make it down the stairs my dad has already been to the Bagel Store in town to pick up news papers, bagels, muffins and fruit. Now, you’d think through reading half of these stories in here that my entire family is about 500 pounds… Luckily we’ve all been blessed with a fast metabolism! Let’s just hope it continues that way! Anyway, making these muffins brought me back to the happiness of Sunday morning breakfast as a kid. I hope you enjoy making them as much as I did.

What You’ll Need:

• 264 grams of Flour (2 Cups)
• 1 tbs of Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp of Salt
• 1 Egg * Room Temperature
• 200 grams of Granulated Sugar (1 Cup)
• 60 grams of Melted Butter (4 tbs)
• 290 grams of Sour Cream (1 and 1/3 Cups) * Room Temperature
• 200 grams of Chocolate Chips (1 and 1/4 cup)

To Prepare:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
• Butter the top of your muffin tin and place in the paper inserts

Directions:

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside

In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, sugar, melted butter and sour cream. Keep in mind, the sour cream and the egg should be at room temperature. Remember from All You Need to Know – Eggs that an easy way to bring an egg to room temperature is just to place it in a bowl of warm water for a couple of minutes rather than leaving it out for a long period of time.

Add the chocolate chips into the dry mixture. We add them into the dry so that we the chocolate chips are well-distributed through the muffins. If they are added to the wet ingredients they’ll sink to the bottom, and who really likes the bottom of a muffin anyway? The top is the best part!

Add the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and using your rubber spatula, combine with as few strokes as possible. You don’t want to overwork the dough.

Now here comes a little trick: Any time I make cupcakes or muffins I always use an ice cream scooper to scoop from the bowl to the prepared tin. Well, this past week in baking class I learned an even better way that is faster, easier and cleaner that I’m going to share with you! It may sound a little tricky, but trust me it makes life so easy once you get the hang of it!

Take an ordinary pastry bag and cut the tip enough so that the dough and chocolate chips can fit through (note: if you’re using blueberries or cherries the hole with have to be the appropriate size for the fruit to fit through – some of you may think this is obvious, but you’d be surprised!). Fold the cut tip over a bit and place the pastry bag in a large cup (or a measuring cup like I did) and fold down the edges around the outside

Scoop the dough into the pastry bag. Since the top sides are folded down they’ve remained clean! Lay the pastry bag flat on the counter and with a plastic scraper, or anything with an edge, hold the top of the bag and push the dough to the tip of the bag.

Twist the top of the pastry bag and you’re ready to go!

Fill each individual muffin roughly 3/4 up.

Bake for 25 -30 minutes or until the tops of the muffins start to brown. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Tags: Baking Class, breakfast, Chocolate Chips, Family, French Culinary Institute, muffins, Thanksgiving