Sunday, May 9, 2010

SMS: Lemon-Orange Blueberry Muffins with Pecan Crumble


First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there including mine! We love you all!

Wow. It's been quite the crazy 2 week stretch! Yesterday, my husband graduated yesterday with his Pharm.D., so we've had graduation activities for most of the weekend. It's been fun, and I couldn't be more proud of him :-)


Anyway, back to the muffins. This week's SMS was hosted by Chaya at My Sweet and Savory. In the Sweet Melissa Baking Book, Melissa has a basic muffin recipe with a page or two about different add-ins that would be good. The group had already baked a couple different variations before I joined, but I was excited for these because blueberry is one of my favorites. Adding any type of crumble onto that makes it that much more delicious!

In the past when the group made the muffins, there were several comments that the batter ended up heavy and the muffins a little bit dry. Given this, I considered swapping some of the butter for a little bit of unsweetened applesauce. I often do this in muffins and quick breads to decrease fat in recipes, especially when the ingredient list calls for oil. The applesauce also helps the muffins stay moist, although you need to be really careful not to overmix the batter.  Despite the comments, I didn't make the applesauce swap here. I like to try to stay pretty true to recipes when I make them for the first time, so that I don't goof things up too much! That said, the batter was heavy, and I would consider swapping in some applesauce in the future.

  

I did leave in the lemon zest called for in the base recipe. I wasn't for sure if we were suppose to completely swap the lemon zest for the orange zest, so I just added both figuring that it would just contribute some extra citrus flavor. Whether or not we were suppose to do it, the combination of the lemon-orange flavors was great! I also used the skim milk that we have in the fridge rather than whole milk. We don't use that much milk to begin with, and buying even a small container of whole milk would have been a waste. I suppose this may have contributed to the consistency of the batter a little bit. However, other bakers also seemed to have that issue.


My other slight variation from the recipe was that I mixed the batter up the night before, covered it, and baked the muffins right away in the morning. This worked great as we got warm muffins for breakfast that I really didn't have to wake up any earlier to make. All that I had to do was spoon the batter into the muffin cups, add the crumble, and bake. Perfect for rushed mornings :-)

Overall, we really enjoyed the overall flavors of the muffins and the pecan crumble. My husband has already been asking me to put these on the "make again" list. Check out muffins from the other SMS bakers here. I've seen some comments that adding a little bit more cream or even some OJ also helped a bit with the dryness. Enjoy!



13 comments:

  1. Your muffins look yummy! We really enjoyed this one.

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  2. Congratulations to your husband! Your muffins look delicious. I love the idea of making the batter the night before and baking in the am!

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  3. Congratulations to your husband! Your muffins are beautiful. I wish I had used lemon in addition to the orange.

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  4. those look great, just like the kind you'd get in a bakery! :)

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  5. Congrats to your husband- and to you too!

    I've read about this before, but I've always wondered whether using applesauce as a sub altered the flavor. Please do tell. That said, your muffins look lovely and I'm glad you liked them. I did too, and will definitely do the orange/blueberry combo again.

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  6. Your muffins look great and I love the idea of using applesauce to help with the moisture. Will definitely have to try that.

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  7. Congrats to your hubs! What an achievement!

    I'd love to hear how these muffins turn out with applesauce. I found the recipe a bit dense when we made it a few months ago, but since then I use a little less flour and a bit more cream and they turn out great!

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  8. Hello. I just popped over from "Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms"... had to check out your cookies listed there. Love your blog! Can't wait to try several recipes I see here. Couscous wraps and Monster Cookies... the two balance each other out, right? Hee, hee!

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  9. Congrats to your hubby!

    Your muffins look delicious! That's a great idea to make them in the morning with the batter made last night. I just wish that I could wake up early enough to do that. I get up about half an hour before school starts.

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  10. Hi Tessa!

    Thanks so much for stopping by and for your sweet comments! Your muffins look delish, and I bet the double citrus zest gave them a really bright flavor! What a great idea to mix up the batter the night before and bake in the morning... I'll have to try that next time I make a batch. Can't get much better than a fresh from the oven treat to start your day!

    Congratulations on your husband's graduation- I hope you guys had a lovely time celebrating such an exciting accomplishment.

    Hope you're doing well and I look forward to hearing from you again soon! Have a great rest of your week.

    <3,
    Joy

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  11. Awesome muffins and big congrats to your hubbie!!!

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  12. Congrats on your hubby's achievment!

    Nice photos!

    Carmen

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