For the longest time, I solely made blueberry muffins from a bagged combine as a result of it was what I grew up with. As a child, I liked experimenting with muffin combine at my Granny’s home and it was cheap sufficient that nobody minded shopping for me a number of packets. By no means thoughts that my “experiments” principally consisted of including meals coloring to the combo to see what disgusting shade of muffin I might make.
I saved shopping for muffin combine — principally the Martha White model, however typically the H-E-B retailer model that makes six muffins and makes use of freeze-dried blueberries. I used to be completely proud of my mix-made muffins for years, till I started making baked items from scratch to flex my culinary muscular tissues a bit extra. As soon as I discovered Jordan Marsh’s blueberry muffin recipe, I noticed no cause to purchase a blueberry muffin ever once more, not to mention accept freeze-dried fruit. Nonetheless, it’s potential to hack the boxed model and make it style extra like selfmade — which is particularly helpful for these instances once I don’t wish to undergo the rigmarole of constructing muffins.
I first started hypothesizing whether or not merely mashing down recent blueberries — the trick that offers the Jordan Marsh muffins their heat mouthfeel — would work nicely with a boxed combine. I made a decision to run an experiment in my kitchen. First, I purchased a Betty Crocker muffin combine that comes with canned blueberries. The 2 most eyebrow-raising options of the combo are that its blueberries are positively tiny, and its recipe requires eggs, water, and vegetable oil — elements that don’t seem within the scratch-made muffin recipe I like to make use of.
Because it had been years since I used a field combine with canned blueberries, I made a decision to first make them in keeping with the directions and see how they in comparison with the from-scratch recipe. That try, sadly, was an epic fail: I forgot to empty the canned blueberries, which resulted in off-putting purple muffins.
My second try turned out a correct batch that regarded excellent however didn’t style proper. In comparison with the Jordan Marsh muffins, the feel was chewier and stickier, one thing I blamed on the vegetable oil. It was clear that earlier than I might get to a blueberry answer, I would want to hack the muffin itself. After some tweaking, I landed alone combination of the elements from the Jordan Marsh recipe: two eggs, ⅓ cup entire milk rather than ⅔ cup oil, and ⅔ cup melted butter rather than ⅓ cup water. This swap felt proper, intuitively, as a result of utilizing extra butter than milk, I assumed, would give me lighter muffins.
With my method down, I cooked one other batch with the canned blueberries, this time draining the liquid first. The muffins have been okay, however didn’t provide that mouthful of heat berries that I craved. My purpose was to recreate the sensation of Jordan Marsh’s recipe, the place half the recent blueberries are smashed and the opposite half are folded in entire. This methodology offers you a sizzling flash of heat berries that the tiny little canned blueberries simply don’t ship.
For my subsequent try, I popped open a container of recent blueberries and smashed a half-cup of them with the again of my fork. I folded them into the batter together with the entire berries and my newly perfected liquid elements. The distinction in taste was noticeable within the first chew: These muffins have been much less candy than my first two batches because of the recent berries, and will simply compete with their scratch-made counterparts.
Since I’m not at all times the very best at utilizing up recent elements in a well timed method, I additionally tried a batch utilizing frozen blueberries. Mashing a half-cup of these yielded a whole lot of darkish blue juice that regarded kind of the identical as the surplus from the canned blueberries. I don’t assume there’s a technique to keep away from purple muffins in the event you’re utilizing frozen fruit, except you have been to make a batch solely with entire frozen berries, however I don’t assume that might ship the identical from-scratch high quality. If you happen to can bear serving purple muffins, nevertheless, then frozen berries may be defrosted and mashed right down to create a muffin that’s just like one baked with recent fruit. One thing else to notice is that as a result of frozen blueberries are frozen on the peak of freshness, muffins made with them can be a contact sweeter than these made with fruit from the grocery retailer. When baked, frozen blueberries don’t fairly seize the sensation of consuming a muffin made with recent ones, however they do come lots nearer than the tiny canned ones and are miles higher than freeze dried.
Ultimately, making muffins from a field wasn’t a lot simpler than making them from scratch in any case my changes to carry them nearer to the Jordan Marsh model. The principle profit is that you simply don’t must sift flour and baking soda collectively or get out a hand mixer, and the cooking time is shorter.
I’m more likely to persist with scratch, except I’ve a late-night craving or am cooking on a visit, the place minimizing elements is of dire significance. Both means, I gained’t skimp on recent blueberries — that little tin won’t ever examine to the actual factor.
Further picture illustration credit: Courtney E. Smith
