Mrs Pancakes' Muffins!

After marrying Mr Pancakes, Mrs Pancakes was influenced to do her own cooking. She soon realised she has no talent in cooking main dishes and decided to leave that to Mr Pancakes. However, she could make desserts, and thus decided to leave Mr Pancakes to the main dishes and concentrate on dessert-making (which she loves to eat!). :)

After watching The Martha Stewart Show, and watching the special guest make muffins, it seemed easy enough to attempt. Thus, Mrs Pancakes decided to give it a try.

My first attempt: Blueberry Muffins!

This is the original recipe on the website (click here):


Makes 1 dozen
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees ( 190 degree celcius).

Generously butter a standard 12-cup muffin pan and dust with flour, tapping out excess; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Working over the bowl, toss blueberries in a fine sieve with about 1 1/2 teaspoons flour mixture to lightly coat; set aside the flour mixture and the blueberries.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using a handheld mixer, beat butter and 1 cup sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. Mix in vanilla.

With the mixer on low speed, add reserved flour mixture, beating until just combined. Add milk, beating until just combined. Do not overmix.

Using a rubber spatula, fold in the blueberries. Divide batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. If desired, in a small bowl, mix together remaining 1/4 cup sugar and nutmeg. Sprinkle sugar mixture on top of muffin batter.

Bake, rotating pan halfway though, until muffins are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center of one muffin comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn muffins on their sides in their cups, and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

However, after making the muffins, the Pancakes found this recipe too sweet for our liking. Thus, Mrs Pancakes decided to improvise. Instead of the 1 1/4 cups sugar, Mrs Pancakes only slowly reduced to 1 cup (which was still a tad too sweet), then 1/2cup sugar.

Also, 190 degree celcius for our humid temperature resulted in flat and burnt-on-the-top muffins. Mrs Pancakes then tried it out with 160-170 degree oven. It took longer time but the muffins turned out prettier. :)

The good thing about this batter is that we can add anything to it -- chocolate chips, blueberries, raisins, etc. It is a very basic muffin recipe. Mrs Pancakes even further improvised it by adding earl grey tea bags into the milk (heated up) to stand for about 30 mins, thus creating earl grey tea flavoured muffins with blueberries. Worth a try!