My baking baby!

I love homemade blueberry muffins. My mom is a fantastic baker, and she’s been making them for as long as I can remember.

Store bought muffins just can’t compare. Store bought blueberry muffins often taste more like cake than muffin, and the worst kind use artificial blueberries that bear no resemblance to the real things.

Somewhere along the way — don’t ask me when because I can’t remember — I started making homemade muffins, as well.

My mom and I use different recipes, but she has passed along her joy in making (and sharing) homemade muffins the same way she passed on her brown eyes and her propensity to talk to just about anyone.

My mom and I make blueberry muffins with an abundance of blueberries, all year round; we use fresh blueberries, when they’re easily available, and frozen ones when they’re not. I always have a large bag of blueberries in my freezer. Always.

(A college boyfriend, visiting on break, once told me he didn’t like my mom’s muffins because they contained too many blueberries. A first clue that we weren’t compatible?)

At my house, we add bananas to the muffins, and every batch is split in two because my girls are not all that fond of blueberry-banana muffins. They prefer banana muffins with loads of chocolate chips. (I don’t blame them; they’re delicious!)

I’ve been making muffins with my girls for years. In fact, my oldest daughter, just this week, made them by herself, from memory, the way I do. She has also put her own spin on our recipe. She adds cinnamon to the dry ingredients and often sprinkles the top of each muffin with a cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Here’s one big lesson from three generations of blueberry muffin bakers:

  • Everything we do duplicates. My colleague Barb McLin said this to me several months ago, and it has stayed with me. My daughters, who are certainly paying attention to what I do, are picking up my love of baking (and eating) homemade muffins. What else are they learning from me? What can I do to ensure that I am living my life in ways that I want to see duplicated in them?

And here’s my recipe:

Dry ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsps baking powder

slightly less than 1/2 tsp salt

about 1/4 tsp of baking soda

Wet ingredients:

Two or three overripe bananas

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

1/2 cup of milk

a generous splash of vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. I use a hand blender to completely puree the banana, which gives the muffins a smooth texture, free of banana chunks.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until moistened. Then add lots of blueberries (at least a cup) or lots of chocolate chips. Or, split the batter and make some of each, like we do.

Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown.

Share and enjoy!

Tell me something!  What kind of muffins do you love most? Can a muffin have too many blueberries? What habits and values are you hoping to see duplicated in the lives of your children or other people around you?