Blueberry Muffins

Can we all agree that Sam's Club has some of the most delicious muffins? Ever? I've strived for years to find a recipe that could even remotely compare. My mom's recipe produces these crumby, dry little things that you have to smother in butter to get down so that wasn't going to help. Great flavor, but dry. Sorry, Mommy dearest! There was an amazing sale on blueberries a few weeks ago so I froze a gallon sized ziploc full of them until I could find that allusive muffin recipe. I found it....and promptly lost it!

I found this excellent recipe on someone's blog via Pinterest. In her pictures, there was a ribbon tied in a bow around one of the muffins. It had a streusel topping, and they were delicious. If anyone can direct me to the blog, can you please let me know?? I made these delicious muffins and then my computer died so I lost the page. Tear!

So, sadly, I started looking for more recipes to experiment with. I found one that called for Bisquik and sour cream. I didn't have Bisquik, I had generic pancake mix. And I didn't have sour cream but I did have blueberry yogurt. That's all practically the same, right? (nervous laughter) I didn't want to waste any of my beautiful blueberries on a recipe I was already leery about, so I figured the blueberry yogurt would be enough. I don't know who the nutcase that wrote the recipe was, but that was not enough liquid! Here's a picture of what the dough looked like after adding more that the required sour cream (or in my case, yogurt).

Looks more like cement than muffins, wouldn't you say? I ended up adding double the yogurt, and then some almond milk. I made mini muffins because I didn't want to commit to eating an entire muffin if it was gross.

They ended up puffing up quite nicely though.

But the flavor and texture were all wrong so they all ended up in the trash. So glad I didn't sacrifice any blueberries!

After that fiasco, I needed more muffins, so again I scoured Pinterest. The recipe by A Cook's Quest seemed to come up pretty often and they looked like they had the texture I was looking for so I tried it out. They were really good! The original recipe is super complicated and involves boiling the blueberries to make a sort of syrup and then adding it to the batter. I made a much simpler version. I also didn't use the streusel topping because my streusel always turns into more of a crunch blob than the cute topping in her pictures. If you're feeling up to it, you should definitely check out her post, but if you're lazy like me, this is my edited version.

Blueberry Muffins

2 c blueberries (You can use less but I like at least one berry per bite!)

1 c sugar

2 c white flour

1/2 c wheat flour (I feel like wheat gives it more substance but you can just use white.)

2 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 large eggs

1/2 c oil

1 c buttermilk (I used almond milk with 1/4 c lemon juice)

2 t vanilla (But if you use vanilla almond milk like me, don't worry about it)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Make sure your oven rack is in the middle position. Prep your muffin tins with liners, or vegetable spray. This recipe made about 15 muffins for me.

For the next bit I'm going to quote A Cook's Quest because, well, I'm lazy!

"Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl. [Set aside.] Whisk remaining sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick and well combined. Slowly mix in oil until combined. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. (Batter will be very lumpy with few spots of dry flour; do not over mix.)"

Now it's time to scoop! I use my handy dandy ice cream scoop for muffins and cupcakes; it seems to be the perfect measurement.

When you put these in the oven, turn down the temperature to 400 degrees. I saw this trick on Pinterest (of course) and it always makes my cupcakes and muffins always come out bigger. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the tops start to brown. Allow to cool in the pan for ten minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack, or your mouth! These freeze really well, too. This will definitely be my go-to recipe until I can find the other.

Yum!

Happy baking! xoxo

Shelf DIY Project

I must warn you now, this post has nothing to do with food. I just thought I did such an amazing job with this project that I wanted to share to with the world! (hehe!)

Because I run a daycare from my home, I get bored with my home decor very easily. I'm constantly on the lookout for DIY decorating projects that I can manage on a budget. I saw this idea a few years ago on some show on HGTV or DIY network and after staring at this...

...for weeks, I knew this project was going to be next. Here's the finished product:

So much better!! So here's my adventure...

First I had to fill all of those ugly holes. They're there so you can adjust the height of the shelves, but they had  all been screwed in by my in-laws (the previous owners of these bookcases) so they were useless.

Then I had to fill in the holes that had been punch into the back.

Here's the trim that I picked out.

I completely forgot to take pictures during the measuring, sawing, and caulking of the trim. Sorry! I was trying to get it done before dark and I completely spaced it. Just imagine some super impressive shots involving me with measuring tape and a saw, cuz that's pretty much how it went down.

After putting puddy in between the cracks in the trim, I primed it. I used a gray primer so the black would look better.

Then a coat of glossy black...

Rinse and repeat for the inside.

Hello Mr. Bug!

Next, was what was supposed to be the most tedious part...adding the accent paint to the trim. I started by trying to hand paint each vine. That turned out to be a hot mess..

No matter how small of a brush I used, it wasn't small enough. The paint kept spilling over the edges of the design and when I tried to wipe the excess away, most of the paint in the grooves were wiped away too. Very irritating, but it gave me an idea. I loaded up a brush with my metallic silver paint, and globbed it into the crevices. Using a damp rag, I gently wiped away the top. It took two coats to come out as bright as I wanted it to, but it was so much faster!!

And that's it! My masterpiece was complete. 

Before starting, my goal was to write this post and tell you what the grand total was. Sadly, my husband's dog knocked over the can of gray primer and spilled it all over the floor. (I can almost hear your hand slapping your foreheads.) I managed to get the majority of it out of the carpet, but half of the can was wasted, so we had to buy another can. Lesson learned, dogs + paint + apartment carpet = no security deposit back! Ah well, c'est la vie!

I hope you're as amazed by how great it looks as my hubby was!

Happy crafting!