Blueberries! Muffins and more.

I got some awesome blueberries at my grocery store this last week, and after a particularly grueling... no, I should say spirit crushing... day of house hunting I came home and made these:

Blueberry muffins, from my Williams-Sonoma Breakfast Comforts cookbook, and THIS:

Blueberry and Almond Tart (with Basil Whipped Cream, yumm!) which I have made before. They were delicious, and re-inflated my spirit like only fresh home-baked goods can. To find the recipe for the tart click on the link above. Here is the recipe for the muffins:

You will need:


- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with a splash of plain white vinegar)
- 2 large eggs
- 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but what makes these so special)
- 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

for streusel (optional, my Jacob prefers them without):

- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup sliced almonds or pecans

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter and flour 12 standard muffin cups or line them with paper liners. Butter the top of the muffin pan.
In a bowl, sift together all DRY ingredients. In another bowl whisk together the WET ingredients. Pour WET ingredients into dry and stir unit just combined. Fold in the blueberries. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
 - To make the streusel, in a small bowl combine the flour, sugar, and butter. Using your fingers or a fork, work the ingredients together until just combined. Work in the almonds/pecans. Press into a ball, and then separate with your fingers into coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the tops of the muffins.

Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto the rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. I love mine warm, with lemon curd or basil whipped cream, or plain!

Blueberry and Almond Tart (5/1/2010)

This is a recipe from my latest dinner party adventure. Uhem. We had one of Finn's little friend's family over to dinner last night. We anticipated an awkward afternoon, and it was... ok... I should make clear that the awkwardness that occurred was mostly on our end. I love "the mom" (we'll leave names out of this). She made me the most delicious chocolate cherry birthday cake I have ever had. Love, love, love! She dropped it by just in time for me to eat it for breakfast! And how awesome is she for remembering my birthday?! We have play dates together all the time, but neither Jacob or I had ever really talked to "the dad." He's a construction lawyer, currently working for his dad's firm. He seemed very intelligent, well spoken and nice.

My husband studies Anthropology at the University of Utah, and most people think that means he likes dinosaurs. "The Dad" was asking Jacob about ethnography's and the cultures he was interested in studying, so that was cool...
The only awkward point came during a lull in the conversation in which I decided to interject a story from my recent trip with Finn to San Diego. The story is this:

Finn and I were at the zoo, and we happened to be checking out a couple of monkeys. We were surrounded by a medium sized group of people when one of the monkeys bent over in front of the other and the first started "grooming" the other in an "area." Finn was disgusted, and in his anger pointed an accusing finger at the monkeys and screamed out "Don't touch the butt-hole!" Everyone around us lost it, and I was more embarrassed than I can remember being in a long while.
Great story, right? But things got kinda weird after that. I thought butt-holes were cool, as long as it's a little kid talking about them, but maybe not?

Recipe From: Four Ingredient Cookbook, by Joanna Farrow
And Cuisine At Home magazine, Issue # 58, August 2006


Serves: 4 to 6 Cook Time: about an hour

Ingredients:

-9 oz shortcrust pastry (my suggested recipe follows)
- generous 1 cup marzipan
- 4 large egg whites
- generous 1 cup blueberries (blackberries are yummy too!)

For the shortcrust:

- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- zest of 1 lemon (optional)
- 1 stick unsalted butter, cold, cubed
- 1 egg yolk (reserve egg white for filling)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat a 9” tart pan with nonstick spray.
Process flour, sugar, salt and zest in a food processor until combined.
Add cubed butter...

...and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Blend in the egg yolk; pulse until dough begins to hold together.

Press dough over the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan. (This picture is of the crust after it had been baking for a while. I was a little late with the picture taking on this one...)
Bake at 400 degrees until golden, 12-15 minutes, then cool completely.

Reduce oven temp to 350 degrees. Grate the marzipan. This is the marzipan that was available at my grocery store. It was in the Spanish candy section, and spelled Marzapan.
When separating the yolks from the whites it is important to be very careful, because even the smallest ammount of yolk will keep the egg whites from stiffening properly (that's what she said!) I like to break my eggs one at a time into a smaller bowl before adding them into my larger mixing bowl just to make sure no yolks make it in the mix.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Sprinkle half the marzipan over them and fold in. Then fold in the rest.

Turn the mixture into the pastry shell and spread it evenly.
Sprinkle the berries over the top and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden and just set. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before serving. Top with Basil Whipped Cream to knock it out of the park!