Dora's Delicious Blueberry Muffins !

During my last visit to the local library, as I was walking the aisles, selecting books for my family; I noticed that my younger son(aged 3) had selected a few himself. I gave them all a cursory glance, making sure that they would be suitable for his age and his interests and then checked them out. When I came back home and sat with LG3 to read the books, I realized that the Dora and Diego book that I had assumed was a storybook, was in actuality a recipe book for kids ! When I asked the little one why he had selected that book, he quipped that he wanted to see all the snack pictures in there !!
Then last week, I decided to bake the yummy looking blueberry muffins listed in the book. I already had some fresh blueberries and the cornmeal needed in the recipe. The batter was extremely easy to whip up and took me about 15 minutes to get into the oven. 20 minutes later, we had piping hot scrumptious looking mini muffins on the cooling rack.



Ingredients:
½ C unbleached all purpose flour
½ C white whole wheat flour
⅓ C cornmeal
⅓ C packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
⅔ C low fat plain yogurt ( I used homemade)
¼ C canola oil
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flax + 3 Tbsp water, beaten well)
1 tsp cornstarch
½ tsp pure vanilla extract
1 C fresh or frozen blueberries (I used fresh)

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to &deg(375);F. Line a mini muffin pan with liners or spray lightly with cooking spray.
2.Combine the flours, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and cornstarch. Whisk well. Reserve two tablespoons of this mixture.
3.In another bowl, combine the yogurt, oil, flax egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and combine gently. Add the blueberries to the reserved flour mixture and coat well. Then add the blueberries to the batter and fold in gently.
4. Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake for about 15 - 17 minutes, until tops are golden brown.
5. Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, before removing onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy lovely muffins, bursting with juicy blueberries !


Notes:
1. The addition of cornmeal to the batter gave a wonderful texture to the muffins. They weren't pasty or dense, instead they were really light and airy, bursting with the goodness of fresh blueberries.
2. As usual, these mini goodies made their way into lunchboxes and traveled really well.
3. These can be frozen nicely too and will keep for several days(if they stay undiscovered that long !

Baking Bread - From scratch !

When I have time to indulge in , all I like to do is hop , from one fabulous blog to another.
In doing so, I have come to one conclusion - food bloggers out there are extremely talented !!!
To get fussy kids to eat and more importantly like what they eat, takes creativity of an entirely new level.Each blog that I visit, adds so many more recipes to my repertoire and more importantly stretches my mind just that bit, allowing me to see how much I can let my fledgling imagination soar and work wonders in the kitchen.
Well...I have miles to go before I reach that level of expertise, but every journey must begin with a single step. And every goal of becoming an experienced bread baker must begin with the first loaf of bread ! With such an exalted aspiration, I began scouring the virtual kitchens for easy sounding bread recipes. Most of them sounded either too intimidating or too time consuming..Eventually I stumbled upon this recipe ..
I decided to try it out and was nothing short of stupefied at the result !!!

I couldn't believe at the delicious looking and smelling loaf that came out of my oven and sat alluringly on my counter top ! When it finally cooled and let itself be sliced into generous sized slices, I was more than glad that I had embarked on this quest to try my hands at making bread from scratch ! It was crusty and crispy on the outside and tender inside...perfect !

I followed Trent's recipe to the letter, so I will not bother writing it up again, until I have enough courage to tweak it and make it my recipe ! I have already made this loaf twice now and anticipate making it again and again with different flours and flavours !
Will keep you posted !


Notes:

• I do not own a stand mixer and did the kneading by hand. For the dough that is required for a couple of loaves' worth, I didnt find it too hard to do the kneading. As has been mentioned in scores of blogs, it is indeed therapeutic to get your CLEAN hands into the dough and knead it until it goes from a sticky messy mass to a smooth, round , impressive looking ball of dough.

• I have only used white unbleached bread flour. I intend foraying into whole wheat and whole grain breads, because I am not too fond of including white bread in our diets.

• Temperature of water, freshness of yeast and allowing the dough to rise are very important to the end result !

I will leave you with some pictures and some links to expert bakers who can explain thge process so much cleary than I can !


http://www.thefreshloaf.com
http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com
http://breadbasketcase.blogspot.com

No doubt there are loads of helpful and expert resources available on the internet as well as in your local public libraries.I am just listing a few that make me drool every time I see the pictures!

Do you have any bread recipes that you rely on ? Do you have any tips and tricks that would make it easier for novice bakers to attempt this wonderful art ? Do share !