Better Homes and Garden's Blueberry Muffins!

Hi to the few of you reading this, (namely my girl Amy),  another long absence, I know. I'm really crap at this bloggin' thing.

You know what they say though, "If it's not Scottish,  it's CRAP!", well not "they", but SNL and Mike Myers, and that's good enough for me.
Scottish Shop | Saturday Night Live - Yahoo Screen

Pretty much me in the kitchen.

Anywoo, I'd say I'll do better, but I'm nearing a "big" birthday and if there's one thing I've learned in my old age, it's don't make promises you can't keep. Speaking of old age, I'm at that point in my life 'where going out is coming home' (thanks Hall & Oates), I am only willing to deal with comfy shoes from Payless or Aerosoles (they have hip styles now, ok?!), and most free time I get goes to trying out new recipes and baking for family/friends/coworkers.




Alright maybe the latter is more to do with my love of food rather than old age (maybe a little of both!?), but it's a nice segue into the main topic of this post-blueberry muffins!!

Blueberry Bombers.

I had a major muffin fail awhile back, 'blueberry bombers' I called them, they were tasteless, off-color losers. A couple of bleeders made the muffins a very unappealing blue hue, which I think had largely to due with the fact that I used frozen blueberries, and mixed a little too much, (rather than "fold"). Also the recipe did not call for any cinnamon or vanilla to be added in, a "must",  I have since learned.

So fast forward to my do-over, using the same recipe, from , of course, Grandma's trusty Better Homes and Gardens cook book, circa 1946, with a few modifications from me. (You can see another post with more recipes from that book here).

Comparing these recipes to modern day ones, you notice so many differences, for one, the "serves (number of people)" amount is always so much higher, indicating what we know about present day portion sizes to be true (oink). The recipes also seem to call for far less sugar, vanilla, etc than those I am familiar with seeing on cooking websites and Pinterest. It's like we've became a nation of over eaters with dulled tastebuds! Pretty sad, really. I am attempting to eat as many freshly prepared meals as possible lately, and honestly I think the lack of preservatives/chemicals in food pre 1970s is what kept most people at a healthy weight despite eating rich foods (I feel like I've gone on about this before, so forgive me if it's a repeat).

In short, thus renews my motivation to try and cook for myself more.

Obviously a more realistic photo of me baking

Okay maybe not, but I did wear this darling 50s apron my Mam gave me, how sweet is the little detail on the pocket!? Swoon.

So, on to the recipe. 

Here it is in full page form: 

and a close up of the recipe I'll be using: 

Now I made a few modifications (in red), so here is the recipe as I made it:

Dry ingredients:

          

• 2 cups four    
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup of sugar (upped from 2 tablespoons or 1/8 cup)
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (not in recipe)

I mixed those together and used the "Stir" setting on my KitchenAid for about a minute, then whisked my wet ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Wet Ingredients:

Gross looking, I know.

• 3/4 cup of milk (reduced from 1 cup as per the blueberry muffin instructions)
• 1 beaten egg
• 3 tablespoons melted shortening 
• 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract (not in recipe)

After mixing all of that together (speed setting 2 for about two minutes),  I "folded" in:

Pretty picture of blueberries that I stole from Google.

• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries (upped from 3/4 cup) 

Here's what they look like just before I stuck them in the oven (I used baking cups rather than greasing the muffin pan), and boy when they say 1 dozen, they sure mean it. I didn't have a bit to spare: 

Please ignore my clean-but-trashed-muffin pan that badly needs replacing.

So as you can see, no blue hue, yay! I baked those puppies at 400º for about 18 minutes, then whisked together great basic glaze to drizzle over them:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3 teaspoons milk (I used 2%)
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Here's what they looked like all baked with the glaze on top:

A little lumpy but they sure were yummy! I think next time I may up the sugar to 1 cup, my modern taste buds need it. Maybe in time I'll get used to having less, but if you're like me you may want a bit more! Also this recipe seemed to use shortening instead of butter (which I noticed a lot of vintage recipes do), so I think a bit more sugar would compensate taste-wise. 

Hope you liked the post, till next time darlings! ❤

Update: Goodbyes, Cats and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Hey Blogland,

It's been a pretty long hiatus, hasn't it? 

Well most of you reading this will know why, but for anyone who doesn't and would like to-my Grandma passed away last August. The family has spent every weekend since her passing clearing out her house, and it's been a very long, hard, physical and emotional process. But in a way I feel as if I know her a bit better. Seeing all the little collected pieces of someone's life through out the years will do that I guess. I have a few things of hers around my apartment now, one of them being her cat. That makes three now. Oi. Vey. Gardening shows and knitting magazines, here I come.

Anyway- I won't babble on, sometimes I feel the more you talk about something the more it loses meaning. So I will end the updates there.

One of the items from Grandma's I got to keep was her incredible Betty Crocker Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book-from 1946! Which leads us to the other part of this post. There are lots of cut-outs from the Better Homes and Gardens magazine as well (meant to be added to the cook book, appropriately sized and everything), but nothing older than 1954, I'm in vintage baking heaven. 

Inside front cover

Front Cover

Look at this beauty! It's been through the wars alright but is still completely gorgeous. Just imagine all the history this book has seen!

I like cooking but baking is just special. It's what fills your house with those smells and warmth and really just makes things feel like home. There's only a handful of things I can do to sort of "time travel", and baking is one of them (listening to records is my other fav!).

So with my "new" cook book in hand I decided to tackle one of the recipes that has mystified me for years-the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake!

My cake will totally be as pretty as these, yep.

Here's the recipe we're working with:

This recipe does not call for soaking the pineapples slices in (spiced) rum, but I sure did. Why the heck not?!

Step 1: In the butter goes to melt               

 Step 2: Brown sugar added to melted butter, mmm.

Step 3: Arrange pineapple slices and maraschino cherries over the sugar/butter combo

As you can see I wasn't able to fit the specified 9 slices of pineapple, 7 was really pushing it. 

Aww don't be sad my little left over rum soakers, you will be a delicious Mai Tai soon.

Step 4: Here we have the egg yolks, sugar, and pineapple juice (it came in juice, not syrup) all mixed together

Step 5: And now the dry ingredients added (flour, salt, and baking powder)

Step 6: Pour batter over pineapple slices (I forgot to get a picture of this but here's the finished batter! It was thick.)

I did the dishes while I waited for my cake.

Hahahahaha. Nope.

I sat down to enjoy my quasi Mai Tai, which consisted of rum/pineapple juice from the soakers, pineapple slices and cherries that stained my fingers. (That can't be good to ingest right...? Eh, oh well.)

Afore mentioned kitty trying to muscle in on my booze, rude. 

Aaaand 45 minutes later I had myself a cake! (It was looking done before the given 1 hour time).

Okay now I know it's not so pretty but don't judge, at this point we're one Mai Tai in, and this is also post flip and a transfer back into the pan. But the best part? It was DELISH. There was a sort of almond creamy ness to it (although none was added)/amaretto type flavor, and the sugary butter top was just so mmm.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed my little vintage baking adventure as much as I did, I plan to do many more! Till then darlings ❤

More baking Adventures... with Peanut Butter Cookies!

So last night I once again busted out the gloriousness that is the Better Homes & Gardens Junior Cook Book (more pictures of said amazing book here) :

It was around 80 degrees out so I have no idea why I was baking, but I was. I guess that's what the nesty feelings of spring will do to a gal. So my project last night was to tackle the Peanut Butter Cookies:

Ingredients (my apologies for the terrible quality photo) :

1 1/2 cups enriched flour

1 teaspoon soda (baking soda)

Dash salt (my "dash" probably ended being about 1/2 a teaspoon)

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla (extract)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

Under the instructions it says to take out "2 cooky sheets", possibly an alternate to "cooking sheets"? I noticed this a few times in the book. I wonder when we just started calling (and spelling) them "cookie sheets"? Interesting!

After getting all the ingredients mixed,  (I kinda screwed up the order, not sure if that affected the end taste or not, it didn't say a separate bowl, ok?!), into the oven they went, and came out looking pretty as a picture, actually, here's one now! :)

You know how you always pick out the most unfortunate looking cookie as your tester so as not to let on to the world you're a fail as a cook? Yeah that was this one:

          I mean look at this beast?!  Blobby, ugly mess it is.

Anyway, upon tasting the ug-o, they sadly didn't have a whole lot of flavor so I wondered if I did something wrong, or left something out etc. A friend suggested I do this to improvise:

Jelly in the middle! Which was a delicious addition, like a mini PB & J. After re-reading the instructions I realized I didn't do anything wrong after all, yay! But boo to boring cookies. So next time I will try adding 1 cup of peanut butter as opposed to the 1/2 cup that is called for in the recipe. They need a little jazzing up! Even despite my criticizing, the reviews so far have been positive, so not a complete fail! 

Tomorrow's post will be a review and quick tutorial on false eyelashes! Ta-ta for now darlings!

Nostalgia, vintage cookbooks...and jelly muffins!

Behold the amazing-ness that is the Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book, circa 1955!

 I'm a Hostess of tomorrow, right? I kinda look like the girl garnishing the wiener...ah well.

At any rate - safety first people!  
(Click to see enlarged pictures!)                                    

  
But it doesn't hurt to look cute in the process!

I cannot even explain how enamored with this book I am, the pictures, the illustrations, it's like when I look through it I feel I can temporarily have a smidge of that connection to the past I crave, it's a little bit of magic really. I'm sure this would be the case with all vintage cookbooks, I must buy more.

Everything just looks so perfect!















I mean come on, there's a HOT DOG BUN BOAT!! What's not to love?! Bob's a lucky man.

The Tutti-frutti-ice Sparkle is definitely going on the summer menu, somehow I doubt it will look as pretty, but you can bet I'm going to try!

Also on the summer "To-Do" list:

This both scares and intrigues me!

I could gush and gush about how much I love this little book, but onto the main subject of this post...jelly muffins!! These are really delicious, and make a perfect breakfast or snack! The recipe just states you need "jelly" which really could be any type, but most likely just plain grape then as there wasn't as much variety. So it's up to you how authentic you want to be!

I've made them with red raspberry, grape and strawberry, all a hit!

Last night I whipped up a batch for my best friend who's coming over tonight for wine, muffins and giggles. She's not a retro gal like me, but she loves good food! (and good company...ahem.)

Mid prep: (They have you mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, then combine)

The finished product! Aren't they gorgeous? I love the added bonus of the whole apartment smelling just gorgeous for a few hours after!

I think this little beauty under the "salad" section will be my next attempt, I'll be sure and take pictures if I do!