Sunday, March 28, 2010

A twist on blueberry muffins

After making the strata, I only had a little bit of goat cheese left.  I wasn't going to be making any dinner items for a while, since the strata had a ton of leftovers, so I decided to bake with it.  I came across this recipe, and was intrigued.  I had all of the ingredients already with the exception of the blueberry jam, which sounded so good I wanted to buy it even if I didn't make this recipe.  I actually didn't have enough goat cheese, so I used some cream cheese to get it up to 1/2 cup.  The blueberries were in the freezer from last summer.  This was my only problem with the recipe - I think the blueberries were from the very end of the summer, and they weren't very sweet.  I probably should have checked them out before using them, but they definitely didn't ruin the muffins.  They were just less sweet than I would have liked.  My only change was to use 1/3 cup instead of 1/4 cup sugar.  (If you hadn't noticed - I like sweet.)
I got a TON of muffins from this recipe.  I used paper liners, and used my ice cream/cookie scoopers to get the same size for all of them.  I used my big disher for the full sized muffins and got 12, then used my small disher and got 9 additional mini muffins.  If making mini muffins, make sure to adjust the baking time.
I put most of the full-sized muffins in the freezer so I can enjoy them whenever I'm in a rush.  Of course it's going to be Passover in just a few days, so I'll have to wait until that is over to enjoy the rest.
(I made these on the 24th.)

Recipe: Blueberry Goat Cheese Cornmeal Muffins (adapted slightly from Lisa's Kitchen)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp sea salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk (I used whole milk)
1/2 cup goat cheese, mashed (I used mostly goat cheese, and got to 1/2 cup with some 1/3 less fat cream cheese)
1/2 cup blueberry jam (preferably one sweetened with fruit juice)
1/4 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don't thaw them, just use them frozen)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 F.  Line a 12 cup muffin tin (and a 12 cup mini muffin tin) with paper liners.  In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients.
In a medium bowl, beat the egg, and mix in the milk, goat cheese, jam, butter, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, mix the blueberries with 1-2 tbsp of the dry mixture.  This will prevent them from sinking in the batter.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix just slightly.  Before the ingredients have fully combined, fold in the blueberries.
Divide the batter among the muffin cups - I used a disher to get the same sized muffins.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.  (It will take less time for mini muffins - maybe ~10 minutes.)  Let them cool on a wire rack.  They taste great warm!

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