My Favorite Muffins

A random picture of some flowers in the garden.
They have nothing to do with the muffins whatsoever, I just thought they were pretty.

It's mid-summer and berries are at their peak right now.  For me, that means that I'm spending as much time as possible picking all the berries I can.  We love berries.  Especially the wild ones.  Wild blueberries make the best muffins and pancakes because they're tiny.  That also means there is A LOT of berries in every cup. The kids and I went scouting for berries with my in-laws a few days ago. 

Our usual spots had already been hit pretty hard and the bugs were horrible!  Nevertheless, we came away with a few handfuls of wild blueberries and raspberries.  (As a side note, the wild hazelnuts look fantastic this year.)  Luckily, Grandpa has cultivated blueberries and raspberries available to us, so we still got enough to make a few batches of muffins and some to freeze for later.

Speaking of muffins, I've made these twice this week.  There's a batch cooling on the counter as we speak.  Whether they will ever cool to room temperature is anybody's guess.  The kids eat them as fast as they come out of the oven.

This is a recipe straight out of my trusty old Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking Copyright 1993 that my cousin rescued from the dump for me.  It is a treasured favorite.

Blueberry Raspberry Muffins 

(I added the raspberries because they were mixed together with my blueberries.  It was yummy. Nothing bad happened because I went rogue and added another kind of berries)

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon grated lemon or orange peel

1 cup (total) fresh or frozen blueberries & raspberries - do not thaw

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup oil

1 egg, beaten

1 packet of raw sugar leftover from a trip to Starbucks (optional)

Oven 400 degrees

Mix dry ingredients and add berries, stir to coat berries with flour (so they don't sink to the bottom, in case you were wondering).  Make a well in the center.

Mix liquid ingredients together in a separate bowl.  (If you don't have any fresh lemons or oranges just layin' there, you can add a tablespoon of juice to the milk).  Pour liquid into the dry stuff and stir very gently, just until its all moist.  (Isn't that kind of a gross word? Moist. Its right up there with ointment on my list of words that gross me out).  

The dry ingredients were already mixed together by the time I thought to take a picture.
There are 2 eggs because I made a double batch the first time around.

OK, back to the recipe.  Once the ingredients are all semi-mixed together, put a good size glob in each of 12 greased muffin cups.and pop them in your preheated oven for 18-22 minutes.  Its perfectly acceptable for this batter to have a bit of a rest in the pans before it goes in the oven.  In case you should ever neglect to preheat your oven.  Not that I ever have, but you know, just in case that should ever happen to you.

My muffin batter hanging out on the counter.

Right when they come out of the oven, I sprinkle a bit of raw sugar on top.  One packet is enough for the whole batch.  You could use more, or you could skip it altogether.  Up to you.  Its really just for looks.

This is how many were left after lunch.  The plate was empty by bedtime.
Note: we did give some away ;)

P.S.  I highly recommend making these first thing in the morning, before it gets hot out.  And before your kids get up.  Just in case you'd like to enjoy more than just the smell of them. :)