The Staple Muffin Recipe

The King Arthur Flour Book is the holy grail of baking, as far as I'm concerned. I use this book pretty much every time I use flour, which, as you can probably imagine, is fairly often. Although I like to experiment and incorporate ideas from other people, books, and recipes, my fundamental idea of how flour works is based on the King Arthur Flour Book. On this blog, most of what I put up here are fancy shmancy muffins and stuff that seems complicated. I guess this is because I figure the simple things don't need a blog post. But the simple things are the best, sometimes. I mean, its hard to beat a blueberry muffin. Unless of course you make margarita cupcakes and they flip your world upside down... but that's another post. I figured I'd go through my basic "muffin method", as developed from both the King Arthur book, and from Alton Brown's I'm just here for the food. Alton Brown's book is much more of the science behind the cooking, whereas the King Arthur book has actual recipes, but you can fuse the two to get some pretty interesting ideas... What I really like about King Arthur is that they try the recipes before they print them, which means, they'll actually work. This is pretty important, in the world of Alex.

So, I figured I'd break down the "PDQ" muffin recipe from the King Arthur Flour book. I believe PDQ stands for "pretty darn quick". It is quick, because muffins are easy to make, and then they taste good. Always a bonus. This is the blueberry version.

Ingredients
2C flour (any combination of white and whole wheat)
1/2C sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1C milk
2 eggs
1/4C butter, oil, or margarine, optional.
1.5C berries, of any sort

Preheat your oven to 500F. Once the muffins go in, you'll drop the temperature to 400. This causes them to get nice poofy tops. Grease a muffin tin.

Mix together the dry stuff, as long and vigorously as you desire. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and oil if you're using it. According to the King Arthur book, the fat is optional, because it does not affect the taste of the muffin (and it doesn't, I've done the taste test), but it helps the muffin keep longer. So, if you're freezing these babies for future consumption, add it in, otherwise, no need. Butter is expensive these days!

Once you've got your wet goods thoroughly mixed, dump them into the dry stuff. Mix to combine, but only until the last flour streaks are gone. You don't want to overmix, because that will start to develop the gluten in the flour and make your muffins tough and bready. Add your berries. If you rinse frozen berries before throwing them in there, your muffins won't turn purple, but I like my purple muffins. I just throw the frozen ones in there, no need to thaw. This recipe can get away with just one cup of berries, but I also like my muffins berry-ful.

Fill the muffin cups almost full, if you want big tops, or 3/4 full for normal sized muffins. Stick 'em in the oven, turn the heat down to 400, and take them out after 15-20 min. If you want, you can sprinkle coarse sugar on top before baking.


This is the purple batter before baking.


Here they are in their muffin tins, sugar already sprinkled, ready to go into the hot box.


Out they come, all poofy and delicious looking.