After work yesterday, I sat down with the latest issue of Vogue and a little snack--blueberry cornbread muffins. I know that it might seem weird that I'm using blueberries in a lot of my baking, especially since I griped about how they ruined my pie, but they work so well in quick breads. Also, Bread & Honey recently featured this recipe, and its loveliness pushed me to try it out myself.

This was another easy day in the kitchen. The batter came together without the help of a mixer, which was really nice because I hate cleaning the whisks and beaters of mixers. I didn't have any yogurt or honey in the house, so I used clabbered milk (milk + lemon juice) and sugar. Wrong move.

The cornbread didn't turn out as fantastic as it did for Summer, and I'm convinced the ingredients I used are to blame. Yogurt would have made the cornbread much richer and creamier than the clabbered milk I put together, especially since I used skim milk to make it. I also used reduced fat margarine. With the lower fat content, the cornbread was bound to come out of the oven dry, and it did. This was compounded by the blandness of the cornbread. Honey would have added a much deeper sweetness to the bread than sugar and would have probably contributed some moisture.

I'm not too excited about the end result, but I think I will give the recipe another try if I ever get around to stocking up on some yogurt and honey. This cornbread really reminds me of the Polenta-Ricotta Cake I made for Tuesdays with Dorie, and that one turned out super well. So I have to give this recipe another shot.

Blueberry Cornbread (adapted from Bread & Honey for 8 muffins)
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup clabbered milk (1/2 cup skim milk + 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice; set for 10 min)
• 1/2 egg
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons margarine
• 3/4 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a muffin tin by lining it with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. In another container, combine the liquid ingredients, and then stir then into the dry mixture. Be careful not to overstir; mix just until the dry ingredients are full incorporated. Fold in the blueberries.

Divide into the muffin tin. Bake for about 18 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

With my dad's eye swollen by a nasty insect bite, I decided to do a bit of baking to cheer him up. Luckily, he had recently spotted a sale on blueberries during his last trip to the market, so I made his favorite breakfast item--blueberry muffins!

I came across several different muffin recipes, all calling for very different amounts of flour, fats, and sugar. It was a tough call, but I settled with this recipe because it had 2,141 votes of confidence. How can you really compete against that kind of support?

I skipped the crumb topping since everyone in my family is watching their sugar intake. Plus, I wanted to keep things simple. This recipe could not have been easier to recreate. I didn't even have to pull out a mixer to help do the work. These muffins were completely made by hand, and it was a strangely satisfying experience.

The muffins came out of the oven much paler than I anticipated, but they at least had nice, rounded tops. My dad thought that they were too sweet, but my mom and I enjoyed the taste of it. However, I had used skim milk instead of whole milk in the recipe so the muffins were dry. I really need to invest in whole milk, or as Cook's Illustrated claims, I could supplement the skim milk with some heavy cream to get the same effect.

I would love to try this recipe again because it was so quick and easy to put together. Next time, I will use whole milk and perhaps reduce the sugar by a teensy bit. I wouldn't mind experimenting with other fruits--strawberries, apricots, cherries. The blueberries tasted great in the muffins, much better than in the pie, and they produced such a lovely deep, royal purple-blue color.

Blueberry Muffins (from AllRecipes)
Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a muffin tin by lining the cups with cupcake liner. (This recipe makes 8 muffins, but I somehow stretched it to 9.)

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a measuring cup with the capacity to hold at least 1 cup of liquid, pour in the oil, milk, and egg until the 1 cup mark is reached; now stir in the cup. Incorporate the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, being careful to not overmix. When there is a trace of flour still unmixed, STOP and fold in the blueberries.

Divide the batter into the muffin tin. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

I hope you all have a great Thursday! The weekend is almost here!