Blueberry Muffins

I love muffin recipes that use yogurt for the dairy component. There's a delicacy to the crumb that is delightful, a thickness to the batter making it easy to work with, an aroma when baking that I find particularly compelling. That said, I do wish this recipe was worked for twelve regular muffins instead of nine to ten, but I'm hesitant to mess with perfection. And, indeed, the original post from Smitten Kitchen is quite right in calling this recipe perfect.

Blueberry Muffins
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup (6 ounces) plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t defrost)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F

2. Line or grease and flour ten wells in a standard muffin tin

3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

4. Add egg to creamed butter and mix well

5. Add yogurt and zest to mixture and stir to incorporate

6. In separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

7. Add the dries to the wets in two steps

8. Fold in the blueberries

9. Divide evenly into prepared wells of the muffin tin

10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean

11. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing

Yogurt Biscuits

Before Chris and I left for a week, I naturally wanted to do something with our short-term perishables, namely our milk. Fortunately, there was a beautiful application that I like doing anyway: yogurt. Homemade yogurt is a bit thinner than store bought as it doesn't have such things as pectin or cornstarch. As such it is much better for baking with. I use my homemade yogurt in my naan and some curries (though that's not baking). I also use it occasionally when feeding my sourdough starter or directly in my bread.

So now that we're back and neither of us has had a chance to go to the store (Chris being quite busy with work and me being sick), we're finding out pretty much everything we can do with what's on hand. The past couple of mornings, we've had some waffles that we froze before we left, and this morning I found a really good recipe for yogurt biscuits.

Yogurt Biscuits
adapted from Mark Bittman via Culinate Kitchen Collection
makes at least 15

5 oz pastry flour
4 oz whole wheat flour
4 oz ap flour
(that's about 3 cups flour total, adjust individual amounts according to preference)
1-1/4 teaspoons kosher salt (3/4 tsp table salt)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 cups (~10 ounces) plain yogurt


1. Preheat the oven to 450°

2. Mix together the dry ingredients

3. Either cut or grate the butter into the dry ingredients

4. Stir the yogurt into the dry ingredients, until the dough just comes together. If you still have some dry at the bottom, use an additional spoonful of yogurt

5. Using your hands, press all the dough together into a shaggy ball, and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface

6. Knead gently until the dough holds together; keep in mind that it will probably still be a bit sticky

7. Press dough into a ¾-inch-thick rectangle and cut into biscuits with a round glass or biscuit cutter dipped into flour

8. Place the biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet

9. Reshape the leftover dough, being careful not to overwork it, and cut out more biscuits

10. If you don't have a double bottom baking sheet, place the baking sheet on top of an identical baking sheet as a double pan lowers the chance of overbaking the bottoms of the biscuits and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the biscuits are golden-brown. These biscuits are best served warm.