Maria Dernikos

Muffins.  What can I say about them, except – carefully peel away their paper cases to reveal the soft fluffy sponge of the muffin, and eat, let the sponge melt in the mouth and enjoy the sensation of juicy fruity hits of blueberries.  To me that is just about the right balance for the perfect muffin.  Homemade muffins are a world, an entire world, away from ones bought in supermarkets.

Muffins are not something I have ever had a yearning to bake.  I have only eaten them from coffee shops or when I have been tempted at the supermarket, only to regret it as soon as they have been packed into my shopping bag.  I have found them to be a heavy, dense sponge, unsubtly flavoured with either fruit, chocolate or cheese.

Until I had a small crop of homegrown blueberries to use I hadn’t given the muffin any thought.  This year my kitchen garden list was extended to include a few of what I call exotics.  One of these being blueberry bushes.  I followed the growing instructions to the letter, mixing up a cocktail of soils and making sure they were comfortably bedded and watered.  I had visions of endless crops of  super little blue berries and concerns of what I was going to do with this endless supply.

As the months passed, I would wander up the garden to check on them.  Eventually, I saw progress with the appearance of tiny little buds of promise.  I realise now that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed this, and like me were waiting with excitement for their ripening.

Early one morning as I looked down the garden while standing at the kitchen sink, I could see in the far distance that my blueberries where ready to eat. How?  because someone else was busy helping themselves, gobbling down those ripe blue berries as fast as they could. I flew out of the door and down the garden.  The blackbirds who have been keen to keep an eye on my garden had realised that the berries were now ripe for the picking.

They had been busy in my garden all summer helping out by getting rid of anything fruity and edible, but this time they were not going to get their beaks on my berries, not this time.  They had already stripped me of the redcurrants and the strawberries, not to mention the figs.

It upsets me to say that they  feasted on not only on a couple of my figs but a whole tree full (not a single one was left). To add insult to injury the number of figs was too great for my resident two, so they felt the need to invite a cloud of friends to help finish off the fruit.  At times the tree would shake and tremble as they fought over a particularly juicy fig. Whilst all the while all I could do was watch from the kitchen sink, vowing that next year the tree would be netted.

I wasn’t letting them have the blueberries.  A netted structure was set up. I watched from the kitchen sink as they bounced up and down on my netted enclosure,  whilst holding on tight to the netting with their beaks trying as hard as they could to free a small hole, but nothing budged. Those remaining blueberries were mine, all mine.  Admittedly, my reward was only a small crop of 150g of blueberries not counting the amount the blackbirds had already had, but it was enough for something.

As I looked through my cookery books for a recipe worthy of my little haul I kept finding that I was constantly just coming up short on the quantity that was needed.  Eventually I reluctantly resolved that the only answer would be blueberry muffins.  I consoled myself that it would be better a muffin than wasting my little crop.  Thanks to the blackbirds I am now a huge fan of muffins.

Notes on the recipe

Muffin cases are not essential when making these, you can grease and flour a muffin/cupcake tray but it does make life so much easier.

I have added to the recipe demerara sugar but haven’t given any quantities, this is because you can either leave it out completely or put as much as you like over the tops before baking.  It’s down to personal choice.  I love the crunchy texture it creates and I feel the muffins get an added dimension.

 

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