Blender-Enabled Muffins and the Harley Pasternak Blender

Sooooooo ...

I recently got the book Turbo Blender Desert Revolution and it says that you need a high-powered blender that can grind grains and heat foods. Shortly after I got the book, the folks at Salton asked if I wanted to test their Harley Pasternak Power Blender.

*taps fingertips together menacingly*

Why yes, yes I would ...

Bwaaa haaaa haaaa!

I already made one recipe from the book, but this time I decided that I would make a recipe that required grinding some grains. Which I happened to have. The book called for soft white wheat berries, and it just so happens that I bought those recently, too.

I messaged one of the authors of the book to ask whether he thought the Harley Pasternak blender would work for his book. He wasn't sure. The book requires blenders that spin so fast that they heat ingredients, and that are powerful enough to grind grains.

So ... did it work?

First, I put some water in the blender, started at low, and cranked the power up to top speed. And ... the water got warmer and warmer and warmer and then it was actually hot. It passed the first test.

But how about turning grains into flour? The first challenge is the ability to make flour. The second is the ability to grind evenly. You don't want to have some flour and some chunky bits. I put 2 1/4 cups of soft white wheat berries in the blender, set a timer for a minute and watched in complete fascination.

Not only did it turn wheat berries into flour, but it did it without needing me to stop and shake the blender or stop and scrape the sides. It was fun to watch, and kind of magical. Wowza.

So, yeah, obviously it can make your morning smoothie.

The controls on this are simple. The lever on the left is for on and off. The lever on the right is for pulsing. And the dial in the center is the speed control. There are no numbers or set speeds - it's just a smooth transition from the slowest to the fastest speed.

As far as the muffins, these were supposed to have a lemon glaze, which I'm sure would have been lovely. But I decided I wanted basic and somewhat savory muffins that could go with dinner. They have a bit of sugar, but they're not super-sweet. No sweeter than some cornbread muffins I've had.

Buttermilk Muffins
Adapted from Turbo Blender Desserts by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Download this photo as a coloring book page!

2 1/4 cups soft white wheat berries
5 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 2/3 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
3 large eggs at room temperature
5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Note: I ended up making 18 muffins instead of the 12 this recipe should have made. I probably could have filled the muffin cups a little more, but since I live at high altitude, I'm always skittish about things rising out of control. These kept their shape nicely, so I probably could have filled them more. It's also possible that other pans have deeper cups than the pans I used.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter at least 12 cups of a muffin pan. I used baking spray instead of butter, but use what you like.

Put the wheat berries in the blender container and blend at the highest speed until you have a fine flour. This should take about a minute.

Add the sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cover and pulse a few times until the mixture is blended, then transfer the flour to a large bowl.

Add the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla to the blender. Cover and blend at low speed until it is smooth.

Pour the buttermilk mixture on top of the flour mixture and stir until smooth. Divide the batter to fill the muffin cups.

Bake at 400 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 12 minutes. Let the muffins cool in the pan set on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then turn the muffins out and let them cool completely.

I received the Harley Pasternak blender from Salton at no cost to me.

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Peanut Butter Muffins

Here's a quick little recipe. These muffins are sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth in the morning, but not so sweet that they’re dessert. Besides adding flavor, the peanut butter adds a bit of protein to this breakfast treat.

While you could use a smooth peanut butter, the crunch of the chunky peanut butter adds great texture.

No self-rising flour? Make your own.

Peanut Butter Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

 2 cups (9 ounces) self rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter

In a medium bowl combine the flour and sugar.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, vegetable oil, egg, and peanut butter. Whisk until the peanut butter is incorporated.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until combine an there are no more dry spots. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until the next day. (You can skip this and bake immediately, but the overnight rest gives the muffins better texture.)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spray the cups of a standard-size 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray.

Remove the batter from the refrigerator. It will have expanded. Don’t stir. Using a disher or spoon, divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups.

Bake at 325 degrees until the muffins are lightly browned on top, and they bounce back when lightly touched on top – about 25 minutes.

Remove the muffins from the oven and let them rest a minute or two before flipping them out of the pan. If necessary, you can run a thin knife around the sides of the muffins to help loosen them from the pan.

Place the muffins on a rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Need Self Rising Flour? Mix your own!

Self-rising flour is a handy thing to have on hand if you tend to make a lot of biscuits and quick breads and other recipes that specify self-rising. I happen to like King Arthur's self-rising flour, since it's made from a softer wheat than typical all purpose flour. Unfortunately, it's not always available at my local store.

Bummer.

I buy it online when I'm buying other King Arthur products, but I tend to use it all before it's time to place another order. Oh well ...

The good news is that self-rising flour isn't a magical or complicated product. It's easy to mix it up yourself. Sure, you won't get the benefit of the softer wheat flour, but that's not going to kill a recipe. If I'm not planning on making multiple recipes that require self-rising flour, I mix just enough for a recipe or two.

When I know I'm going to be making a lot of biscuits and similar goods over the next week or so, I mix up larger batches. This stuff doesn't go bad quickly, so you don't need to fret about leftovers that hang around for a few weeks or even a few months.

Want to make some? Here's how:

For a small batch of self-rising flour:

2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients and whisk well to distribute the baking powder through the flour. Or, if you prefer, you can sift it together. Store the same way you store your flour.

For a large batch of self rising flour:

1 5-pound bag all purpose flour
1/2 cup baking powder
2 tablespoons salt

Stir or sift the ingredients together well so that the baking powder is evenly distributed in the flour. Store the same way you store your flour.

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Dried Cranberry Muffins

Who says cranberries are just for Thanksgiving? The sweet-tart flavor of the berries pairs perfectly with the vanilla in these muffins and the overnight rest plumps the dried fruit and makes it softer.

For something different, you can now find flavored cranberries. The orange-flavored cranberries are particularly nice in these muffins.

Dried Cranberry Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) self rising flour
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium bowl combine the flour, cranberries and sugar.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla extract. Whisk to break up the egg.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until combine an there are no more dry spots. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until the next day.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spray the cups of a standard-size 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray.

Remove the batter from the refrigerator. It will have expanded. Don’t stir. Using a disher or spoon, divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups.

Bake at 325 degrees until the muffins are lightly browned on top, and they bounce back when lightly touched on top – about 25 minutes.

Remove the muffins from the oven and let them rest a minute or two before flipping them out of the pan. If necessary, you can run a thin knife around the sides of the muffins to help loosen them from the pan.

Place the muffins on a rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Cheddar and Chive Muffins

Breakfast muffins don’t have to be sweet, and these cheddar and chive muffins prove it. Imagine these with bacon and eggs. Perfect, right?

Cheddar and Chive Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) self rising flour
2 ounces coarsely shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoons dried chives
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

In a medium bowl combine the flour, cheese, chives, and sugar.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, vegetable oil, and egg. Whisk to break up the egg.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until combine an there are no more dry spots. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until the next day.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spray the cups of a standard-size 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray.

Remove the batter from the refrigerator. Using a disher or spoon, divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups.

Bake at 325 degrees until the muffins are lightly browned on top, and they bounce back when lightly touched on top – about 25 minutes.

Remove the muffins from the oven and let them rest a minute or two before flipping them out of the pan. If necessary, you can run a thin knife around the sides of the muffins to help loosen them from the pan.

Place the muffins on a rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: You can make these without refrigerating first, but refrigerating the batter improves the texture. Give it a try. I think you'll like it.

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Whole Foods Friday: Blueberry, Cherry, and Oat Muffins

We all know that more fiber is good for us, right? When it comes to baking, usually that fiber comes from whole wheat. But oats are a good alternative, and sometimes they're a better alternative. They're lighter in color in baked goods, and the flavor is milder, so they can be more appealing to people who haven't fully embraced the idea of whole grains.

I made these muffins with a combination of dried blueberries and dried cherries - about 2/3 blueberries and 1/3 cherries - but you can use any proportion, or any dried fruit that you like. I've recently decided that I like dried fruits better than fresh in muffins. The flavor is more concentrated and they're sturdy, so you don't end up with squished fruit in the muffins.

Some recipes call for hydrating dried fruits before baking. I might do something like that for a more delicate baked good, like a cake. But muffins are more robust, and they can handle the more dense fruit. Of course, if your dried fruit has been sitting around for a while and it is too chewy, you can certainly opt to hydrate the fruit before baking.

These muffins were only tested at high altitude - if you're cooking at sea level, you might need an extra teaspoon of baking powder beyond what's provided from using self-rising flour. Up here (gasp, gasp) at about a mile high, these rose nicely, but didn't over-rise, which is always a worry. And the texture was perfect.

Blueberry, Cherry, and Oat Muffins

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup (4 1/2 ounces) self-rising flour
1 pinch salt
1 cup dried blueberries and cherries (any combination you like)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup creme fraiche*
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray a muffin pan (with 12 regular-sized muffins, not the giant ones) with baking spray. Or, if you prefer, line with cupcake papers.

Obliterate the oats in your food processor until you have a fine powder. It's fine if there are a few bits, but it should be mostly powder.

Combine the obliterated oats, self-rising flour, salt, and dried fruit in a medium bowl.

In a separate bowl whisk together the sugar, creme fraiche, oil, and egg. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir until it's combined.

Portion the batter into the 12 muffin cups in the pan.

If the oven hasn't quite come up to temperature at this point, no worries. Just wait for it.

Bake at 375 degrees until the muffins are golden brown on top, they spring back when gently touched in the center, and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean - about 18-20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the muffins to a rack to cool.

*Home made creme fraiche is easy. Here's my method.

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Whole Foods Friday: Vanilla Sprouted Wheat Muffins

Sprouted wheat flour is an interesting ingredient. It's a whole grain product, but I've read that since it's sprouted, it's more like a vegetable than a grain. Whether that's completely accurate, I have no idea, but it makes some sense.

I'll leave the research on that up to you.

The flavor is similar to whole wheat, but with some sweet, malty notes. It paired nicely with the vanilla. And when it comes to vanilla, I'm a bit of a fiend. As much as I like chocolate, I really adore vanilla, In a lot of recipes, vanilla is a background note. In these muffins, it's a little more prominent.

I thought these muffins were fine as-is, but they'd make a perfect background for some fruit added to the muffins. Dried cherries would be my first choice. Or apples. About 1/4 cup of fruit would be perfect. Add the fruit when you mix the wet and dry ingredients.

The one problem with baking with any whole wheat flour is that it doesn't hydrate quite as quickly as white flour, so the baked products don't seem as "soft" as when you bake with white flour - there's a grittiness or toughness in the finished product.

That hydration problem is easy to solve - and it's simple. You just need to let the batter rest. The flour absorbs liquid and gets softer. For these muffins, an overnight rest is perfect. Or a full 24 hours, if that works better for your schedule.

Vanilla Sprouted Wheat Muffins

2 cups (9 ounces) sprouted wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.

In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk, milk, oil, egg, and vanilla together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir well.

Cover the bowl or transfer the batter to a storage container with a lid. Refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spray 12 standard-sized muffin tins with baking spray. Or, if you prefer, line them with cupcake papers.

Stir the batter - it will have bubbled up a lot. You don't want to beat the heck out of it, just stir.

Portion the batter into the 12 muffin cups. Bake at 325 degrees until nicely browned, the top bounces back when lightly pressed with a fingertip, and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean.

Turn the muffins out onto a rack to cool completely.

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Browned Butter Cranberry Muffins

After Thanksgiving, it's always interesting to see which leftovers disappear first, which get transformed into something else, and which stragglers remain after everything else is gone.

When we're done with turkey sandwiches, and the carcass and leftover vegetables have made their way into soup, there's usually one straggler left in the fridge: cranberry sauce. It lasts a long time before spoiling, like any jam or jelly. But there comes a point where I've had enough cranberry-smeared toast and it's time to get creative with the last of it.

Fortunately, cranberry sauce makes a great addition to muffins. The color is pretty, the sweet-tart of the berries is interesting, but the flavor doesn't scream "Thanksgiving leftovers." You can coax the flavor along with new ingredients, if you want to transform it even more. Ginger, orange zest or cinnamon would be lovely depending on what's already in your sauce, or just use it plain. If your homemade sauce was good, it will make very nice muffins. So nice, in fact, that you might want to grab a few extra bags of cranberries and freeze them so you can make this again when the berries have disappeared completely from the stores.

I've only tried this recipe with my own homemade sauce, so I'm not sure how it would work with a store-bought sauce. I'm guessing that a chunky sauce would work much better than a plain jelly that would throw off liquid ratio too much.

This recipe isn't super-sweet - these muffins would be perfect with breakfast, brunch, or dare I say it? - even with dinner.

Browned Butter Cranberry Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup home made cranberry sauce

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with papers. Or, if you prefer, skip the papers and spray the pan with baking spray.

In a small pan, melt butter over low heat, and continue cooking until it browns, stirring as needed. Watch it carefully - it goes from brown to burned quickly. Take it off the heat and allow it to cool while you assemble the rest.

Combine the flour, sugar and baking powder in a small bowl, and whisk to combine.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and milk together, then add the melted butter.

Add the dry mixture and the cranberry sauce to the wet, and fold together, just until it is combined and the cranberries are well distributed. Portion the mixture into the muffin pan, filling about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until the muffins bounce back when touched in the center, and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffins to a rack to cool.

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Maple Walnut Oatmeal Breakfast Bars (or Muffins!)

Perfect for breakfast on the run or at the table.

Although I wrote the recipe for bars, you can use this recipe for muffins (like the photo) as well.

Nuts are optional.

Maple Walnut Oatmeal Breakfast Bars (or Muffins!)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup applesauce
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a 9 x 13 baking pan with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking powder and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter until fluffy with an electric hand mixer. Add brown sugar and beat until combined. It should be light and fluffy Add maple syrup and beat until completely combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add applesauce and vanilla and beat until well blended.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix gently by hand until it is blended. Do not overmix. Add nuts and mix just until well distributed.

Spread the batter into the pan and even out the top. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 50-60 minutes, or until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Cool completely before slicing into 24 squares.

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