One of the things I like best about fall is the temperature cools off enough to do baking. This weekend because the weather was SO awful I decided some baking was in order. The first thing I made was blueberry muffins. I love my grandmother’s recipe for these but I have to cut the amount of blueberries down a little because the ones we pick here are big cultivated blueberries and the recipe is originally for wild Maine blueberries. Here is the revised version.
Ingredients:
- 2 cup Flour
- 3 tsp Baking powder
- 1 cup Milk
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- 1 large Egg
- 1/3 cup Oil
- 1 3/4 cup Blueberries
Preparation:
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
- In a second bowl, combine sugar, oil, egg and milk. Mix well.
- Make well in the flour mixture and pour milk mixture into the well.
- Mix until smooth.
- Add to this blueberries, stirring gently.
- Spoon into muffin pans and bake at 425° for 20 to 30 minutes.
You can make these ahead of time and freeze them or just make ahead and reheat.
Another thing I like to bake in the fall is pumpkin bread. I’ve been making it so long that I use the same base recipe every time but change it up a bit each time. Typically, I vary using squash or pumpkin. Plus I use different types of flour because I like to get more fiber in my diet. This time around I used pumpkin, oat flour, oat bran, buckwheat flour and some ground flax seed. I also realized when I put it in the oven I completely forgot the milk that typically goes in the recipe. Didn’t seem to keep the bread from turning out though.
- 2 cups roasted pumpkin puree
- ¾ cup toasted chopped walnuts
- ¾ cup toasted pumpkin seeds
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup buckwheat flour
- 1 cup oat flour
- ¼ cup oat bran
- ¼ cup ground flax seed
- 1 cup unbleached flour
- 1½ cups dark brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
- 4 eggs
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1½ tsp cinnamon
- 1½ tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup canola oil
- Toast the walnuts in a large skillet. I typically leave them whole, toast them, allow them to cool, then chop them up
- Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon.
- Add the nuts and mix in.
- With a mixer combine oil, brown sugar, and sugar. Beat for about 3 minutes.
- Add squash and mix about 2 more minutes.
- Add eggs one at a time until mixed in.
- Fold in the flour mixture ⅓ at a time.
- Make sure batter well combined
- Place batter in two greased bread loaf pans or 1 bread loaf pan and 4 mini loaf pans
- Bake at 325 degree for 60 – 90 minutes.
- Check to see if done at 60 minutes. To test doneness, insert a toothpick into center and make sure it comes out clean.
I was super impressed with the texture of the final product and can’t wait to share the mini loaves I made with a few friends. Plus as a breakfast treat you really can’t beat it!