Blueberry Muffins - Quick, Easy and Inexpensive - Saving Dough w/ the DoughDr

Bakers,

After my trip to Hawaii - where groceries are very expensive - I became more obsessed with helping you save money with baking! And along with that enjoying getting in the kitchen, unplugging and focusing on putting together a beautiful batch of muffins.

I am not going to go on about nonsense - let’s get to the technique. I costed this recipe using Target and Kroger prices - no Walmart in my area (baking supplies could be the least expensive there ) If you have one a Walmart nearby it can be worth it to shop there.

Bottom line: total batch $4.81 cents - baked is a 12 cup pan yields a muffin that cost .40 cents to produce and .81 cents for a large muffin baked in a jumbo pan. That’s the size I bake most of the time. A Starbucks muffin casts $2.25 each and they are not jumbo size.

Time: start to finish - including clean up - 1 hour - total - maybe less.
Yes, you save money with your baking. The recipe adapted from a culinary school classic is below.

YouTube video tutorial link. My channel is “Ask the DoughDr”
Questions - ask away. Happy Baking! XO, Colette

Blueberry Muffins

Quick, easy and not expensive
Notes:
The batter before adding blueberries will keep 3 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container with plastic wrap against the surface to prevent discoloration from oxidation.

Fully baked muffins will keep, well wrapped in the freeze for 2 weeks. 

Yield: 12 regular and 6  large muffins

1 12 or 6 cup muffin tin 
Paper muffin liners or grease and flour muffin pan cavities
2 bowls - one medium and one large, scale, baking tray to support muffing pan
Ingredients

Blueberry Muffin MEP

283g all purpose flour
8g baking powder
2g salt
100g (2 large) eggs
170g sugar
198g milk - regular or plant based
8g vanilla
Optional zest of ½ lemon
113g melted butter, cooled

Preheat oven to 350 - prepare muffin pans

Fresh or frozen blueberries - fresh berries, pick away stems, wash, drain and dry on paper towels. Frozen berries - keep frozen, toss in a little flour and put back into the freezer until they need to be added to the batter.

Mixing method: muffin method
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in the medium bowl or onto a sheet of parchment paper - set aside
In the larger bowl using a whisk, combine the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, optional lemon zest and milk. Add in the cooled melted butter. Mix to combine.
Using a spatula, mix until fully combined but not over whipped.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients - mix until smooth - try not to exceed 20 total strokes.
Less mixing promotes a tight tender crumb structure while over mixing can lead to tunnels and a more open crumb structure
Fold in fresh or frozen blueberries 
Fill muffin pans 2/3rds full - spoon or scoop. Top if desired with sanding sugar (large grained sugar or crumb topping if you have some hanging around in your refrigerator or freezer. If you have added the lemon zest you can zest the other half of the lemon and toss it with your topping sugar.

Scooped and topped

Bake for 25-30 (approximately) minutes for large muffins and a few minutes less for small - until a beautiful light golden brown and a skewer in the center comes out clean.

Saving Dough with the DoughDr - Baking on a budget

Hello Bakers,

Ingredient prices are an issue for many of us. And I am on a mission to help you keep on baking.
After all the bakers who came before - baked more in hard times - it’s always cheaper to bake than to buy.
And when we bake we control the ingredients.

According to a poll, I put up on Instagram a few weeks ago - asking about inflation and your baking.
Some of you reported you were baking less, some were baking more simply and some of you had stopped baking. And that made me so sad.
So let’s figure it out - baking can be far less expensive the buying but we have to be organized and have a plan.
And it won’t be boring or repetitive, I promise. We can work on focus on finesse, making each batch more perfect than the last.
1. Bake and freeze as part of your meal planning. Everyday bakes like bagels, hamburger buns, pizza dough and whole wheat bread can be made ahead and frozen. This is much more.

2. Keep you baker’s pantry organized and stocked to your baking level. What? What do I mean - stock to the amount you are baking. Make sure you have what you need complete your baking. Having to run out for ingredients is not only a buzzkill but a potential bakekill.
Watch buying in super bulk if you are not going to bake your way through it.

3. Bake it - don’t buy it. The breads and baked goods you do buy can be made by you. A bag of supermarket bagels runs about $4.99 when they aren’t on sale. My weekly batch runs me about .80 cents. (I’ll be going over the math in future posts). And I have other examples as well.

4. This is related to tip one but know what is in your refrigerator and freezer. Try to keep both as organized as possible. Keep a running list on the side of the refrigerator - a small magnetic whiteboard works. This way things will get used up quickly and have to be thrown out or composted later. And I never ever buy bread crumbs - every scrap or heel of bread gets ground up and added to the bread crumb collection.
Did you know that leftover croissants make amazing breadcrumbs?

5. If you have a sourdough starter and you aren’t baking with it all the time, scale it back to a small amount - this will save on flour.

6. Store brands are fine - with the exception of flour. I tested and tested and tested. Everything came out ok. There is one exception, read on.Sugars of all types, shortening, butter and eggs - buying the store brands will save you money. The one ingredient I never buy the store brand version of is flour. It is always bleached, as bleaching lengthens its shelf life. In making doughs, the bleaching process is a problem - it affects the gluten strands - making them stringy and hyper elastic. So this is where I stick to King Arthur or Gold Medal - make sure the bag says UNBLEACHED - it’s worth it and we are already saving money on ingredients that work fine as store brands. The only time we want bleached flour is cake flour. The bleaching process helps with sugar absorption.

Final quick tips:

7. Look for recipes that use oil not butter.
8. Skip the posh frostings that involve egg whites, meringue and butter.
9. Use milk powder in place of liquid milk - ditto buttermilk powder. - more on this in future posts.
10. Weave your family and household bakes into your meal prep - many doughs will wait patiently in the refrigerator for you. Like the .80 cent batch of bagels that are cold fermenting in the refrigerator right now.
Stay tuned - more money saving tips, tricks and recipes coming soon.

Chocolate Pot de Creme - a Culinary School Classic

Hello Bakers,

I am the recipe whisperer - I have nearly all of them from my long career at Le Cordon Bleu. And the most requested recipes from former colleagues and students is this one - chocolate pot de creme from the old Baking Two recipe packet. It’s so good and the texture - amazing!

In those days, culinary students had baking classes for 12 weeks! And this pot de creme appeared in the custard and cookie week.
Full disclosure - I did add a little vanilla and converted it into grams. This recipe works with any good quality chocolate. I used Trader Joes Pound Plus, semisweet.
This is a small batch recipe - it will fill three 4 ounce ramekins - but can always be baked in smaller ramekins or dishes. Make sure to shorten the cooking time if using smaller dishes. And it can be doubled.

Chocolate Pot de Creme

Equipment: ramekins, 13X9” pan or larger for the water bath, saucepan, scale, teaspoons, whisk, spatula, 2 med/large bowls, strainer.

Pot de Creme MEP

Ingredients:
227g milk
85g cream
1 egg (50g)
2 egg yolks (36g)
57g sugar
6g (1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
113g semisweet chocolate - chips and chopped

Garnish: sweetened whipped cream - Creme Chantilly

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees

Melt the chocolate over a bain marie or in the microwave and cool.

In a medium/large bowl whisk together egg, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla until smooth and light.

Add the melted chocolate to the eggs and sugar. Mix until smooth.

Chocolate and egg - mixed until smooth

Scald the milk and cream and temper in the milk and cream (add 1/2, mix and add the other half) to the chocolate mixture.

Strain and pour into ramekins, fill with hot tap halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake for 30 minutes and check - on average it can take 40+ minutes. The pot de creme will not be liquidity but will have a jello like consistency. I used to tell students “bake it until it jiggles like jello not ripple like soup.”

Remove from water bath, place on a rack and cool for 15 minutes - then put plastic on top of the ranekins and chill for several hours or overnight.

Garnish and serve. Pot de creme can be made up to two days in advance

The DoughDr Final Episode 3/16/24 Demo: Irish Soda Bread

Hello Bakers,

Today was our final DoughDr episode. I will be expanding the show and moving it to YouTube - I will post regular updates and most like just like The DoughDr - the show recipes will land here.

Unfortunately, I had technical difficulty so I was not able to post the replay. But the recipe from demo is all here, Irish Soda Bread.
The recipe is adapted from a previous post. The recipe came from my amazing Sur La Table colleague Louise.

Equipment: 8” pan greased and lined with parchment paper, large bowl, scale, teaspoons, bowl scraper, optional mixer fitted with the paddle attachment

Ingredients:
113g currants, dark or golden raisins
1 tea bag (black tea, preferably Irish breakfast)
Boiling water to cover raisins
284g unbleached all purpose flour (I used King Arthur)
74g granulated sugar
1 1/2 teas baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 eggs 75g *to measure out half an egg - beat one egg until smooth and weigh 25g
222g Buttermilk - real buttermilk
32g butter - melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla

Garnish: extra buttermilk and sugar - granulated or sanding

Oven: 375 degrees
1. Cover currants or raisins with boiling water, add teabag to bowl and submerge.
Let sit for 5 minutes and then strain out the tea. Blot raisins dry with a paper towel.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Place in mixer bowl or large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl combine the eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla.
4. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until evenly moistened.
By hand this will take about 20 strokes.
If using the mixer, mix on low speed about 1 1/2 minutes.
The mixture will look quite wet - that's ok.
5. Place in prepared pan. Smooth surface with bowl scraper. Brush with extra buttermilk
and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
6. Using a serrated knife, score the surface of the loaf with an "X".
7. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, then drop the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30 minutes - then check for doneness.
Irish soda bread is done when a cake tester or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. It will also be a beautiful golden brown.
Leftover Irish soda bread will keep a day or two, well wrapped, at room temperature or frozen up to one month.