Week 1: Mixed Berry (Surprise!) Crumble Muffins

Our first attempt at muffins was really nothing to write home about (which is why they were merely glazed over in my last Muffin Entry... one might question the wisdom of my writing about them in this entry instead, but... the bunnies like for things to be detailed and in chronological order). Nobody had had time to go to the store, and we were forced to improvise with what we had on hand: sugar, flour, butter, cinnamon, vanilla extract, frozen mixed berries, and a tiny bit of skim milk (no whipping cream or buttercream-- tragic). We wound up going with a not-as-popular recipe for blueberry crumble muffins, substituting the slightly old frozen berries for the recommended cup of fresh blueberries.

Mixed Berry (SURPRISE!) Crumble Muffins

The muffin base was underwhelming. It was definitely moist, but the mixed berry taste was pretty dominant, and not in either a sweet or a tart way-- in a decidedly "they used frozen mixed berries" way :\ The vanilla was completely overpowered :\

The crumble was an entirely different story. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it saved the muffin, which, already unspectacular, would otherwise have been a bit bland. Crumble isn't the easiest thing in the world to make-- the recipe's typically straight-forward enough, but it's not easy to mix, and a lot of people actually wind up with not-so-great crumble.

Of course, those people didn't have our recipe (awesome ratio of ingredients, really), and they certainly don't have Pete (AKA The Enforcer) on their team. He really went at the butter and the sugar. The crumble was perfectly blended and utterly delicious. It even sparked a little bit of trash-talking and a challenge to a "Crumble Eat-off," which is exactly what it sounds like *whistles* We had plenty left over, and we used the same crumble the next week for our infamous apple pie muffins (pictures, custom-modified recipe, and rave reviews to come).

Here's the Crumble Recipe:
1/2 cup white sugar (I'm sure you can use brown sugar instead, but we used white in our original batch)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour (King Arthur's - James swears by it)
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

All in all, though, not a bad first attempt. Certainly good enough for us to try again-- and for our lovely taste-testers to grant us a chance at redemption :p

Hit me, baby, one more time.