I'm a baker who doesn't know how to make pie. I mean, just look.

Alright, I can do a filling. But a crust? Why is it so impossible to achieve Peak Crust? And what kind of a baker can't serve both the world's Cake People and Pie People? Until practice makes perfect, I'm living a lie.

Experimenting with Oreos is essentially fool-proof. 'Cause Oreo.

Huila double chocolate.

1am and whipping up a hostess gift for Edawg.

I baked a Vander-family coffee cake recipe that has been passed onto us from an old neighbor, Mrs. Needleman. I never met her, but I am 100% sure she knew how to make a mean coffee cake. Still, I’ve made a few edits of my own: reduced whipping time; added vanilla, nutmeg, and molasses (for homemade brown sugar); substituted mango-oj glaze.

Rana pointed out that coffee cake actually has zero coffee in it; it is meant to be eaten alongside coffee, and was probably termed as such because of its sweetness. That “coffee cake does not actually have coffee in it” seems like one of those things that you learned later in life than you’d care to admit.

An homage to Christina Tosi’s love of candy bars, I helped ring in Miss Lulu’s 21st with this one today.

The Bad News:
I won’t be able to spend Mother’s Day with my favorite mom.
The Good News:
I will be able to spend it with some top notch Vander-Moms, and I can create-my-own Mother’s Day for La Una e Unica soon.

“Vandermom.” Put our name in front of anything and it sounds like another name.

Welcomed in my first afternoon of summer with a pie.

Baking day for a holiday Olympiad reunion. Dark chocolate cupcakes, filled with whipped cream and candy cane dust and topped with peppermint frosting. These were our concept sketches, and the real things turned out almost exactly how I’d imagined.

We were nostalgic for those competitive baking days of yore.

Independence Day cake! Couldn’t get a good quality shot of the inside; the lighting was just terrible.

It’s not like a have a super-secret tactic about researching recipes. It’s just, I’ve been baking long enough to know what things need to be exact, what things can’t, what can/should be substituted, and whether or not people are lying when they say 

I have the best recipe ever!!!

Since secretly they’re ACTUALLY saying

I  think this is great when actually it's overly sweet/dry/not-actually-spicy/not-actually-delicious/etc.

A few tricks when reading recipes:

1. Just because it’s a blog/chef/author/person you like, doesn’t mean it’s going to be a delicious recipe READ REVIEWS like it’s your JOB. (If you don’t, I’ll personally fire you)
2. If it’s a blog, the blogger will likely give in-depth descriptions to why they like it. If you (like me) like chewy cookies, and the purported “Best Cookie Ever!!!!!”’s Blogger is like “I like crisp, crunchy cookies” you know it’s time to escape. Immediately.
3. Good bakers often own good cameras. Or, geez, at least a smartphone that can take a good photo. I never trust those hooligans with fuzzy/nonexistent photos posted of their recipes. Maybe I’m just a sucker for presentation. Or maybe bad bakers actually make bad photographers. Whatever.

Anyways, I’m usually a cupcake person (as my friends and family know), but yesterday after eating a bowl of cereal I decided that instead of eating that for breakfast I would’ve rather eaten a warm blueberry muffin.

Do I still have blueberries in my fridge?

Yes?

…and moments later I was at my computer doing my whole research-thanggg looking for a blueberry muffin recipe.

THANK YOU AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN FOR LISTENING TO ALL OF MY RULES ABOUT RECIPE SELECTION AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF YOUR COMESTIBLES. You make me smile.

Except no thanks for hiding your recipes to non-subscribers.

At which point, I then paid my thanks to the interwebs, as of course some random lady mah girl Judy had already posted it up.

Except where I didn’t actually follow any of her substitutions, halved the recipe, used buttermilk powder, measured minimally when making and using the lemon-sugar topping, and baked the six muffins in flower-shaped-baking-cups for maybe 14, 14.5 minutes.

Lauds, Judy.

These are moist, very blueberry-y, and the lemon-sugar topping is a nice addition. I probably would have benefitted from baking them another minute or so, but didn’t want to overbake them. I think 15 minutes of uninterrupted oven-time, and then 5 minutes cooling time would’ve been fine.

BTDubs: If I do write recipes, I’m going to write them like I’d write really informal science labs. Deal? Deal.

Blueberry Muffins (my version of America’s Test Kitchen)

MATERIALS:

Blueberry ‘Jam’

1 cup blueberries

1&½ tsp sugar

Lemon-Sugar Topping

1/3 cup sugar

1&½ tsp. lemon zest

Muffin

2&½ cups all-purpose flour

2-½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt (Don’t be picky. Sea? DONMATTAH. Kosher is probably better than table salt, just for quantity’s sake. I just pinched and was like 'ehhhh, that’s about right’)

2 large eggs

1&1/8 cups (8 oz.) sugar (I eyeballed this. Honestly, go for 1&¼ cups. It could use the extra sweetness)

4 Tbs unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

4 Tbs vegetable oil

1&½ tsp pure vanilla extract (Pour it innnnnn)

1 cup buttermilk (Don’t be afraid to use powdered stuff. Saves my butt regularly)

1 cup fresh blueberries

Jam

1. Grate zest into the bowl you’ve already measured the sugar into. Mix berries and sugar in small saucepan over medium heat, scraping down sides so it doesn’t burn, and squishing the berries with your spatula. Cook down until it looks like this:

I’m borrowing photos today. Hopefully in the future, when I’ll be more on-my-game and not ghost-posting (posting about yesterday’s muffins? EEEEK. Pure phantom-ery) I’ll use my own photos.

Topping

1. Grate zest into the bowl you’ve already measured the sugar into.
2. Mix with spoon and set it aside.

Muffin

1. Heat oven to 405˚F.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in large bowl.  Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until it looks light, like this:
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together melty butter, oil,vanilla, and buttermilk.
5. Add egg mixture and whisk well until combined.
6. Add wets into drys, mixing gently with a spatula. It’s gonna be a tad lumpy, and that’s quite alright.
7. Stir in blueberries.
8. Line a 12-muffin muffin tin with baking cups (I chose yellow flower ones. Hadn’t used them yet. They were super cute), and pour/spoon the batter into each one about 4/5 of the way up the sides (leave about 1cm of room from the top).
9. Spoon equal amounts of jam onto tops of the muffin batter cups, and swirl the jam into the muffins using a skewer or chopstick (the chopstick method was excellent. Don’t overmix! Marbelize-it!
10. Sprinkle muffins evenly the lemon-sugar mixture (you don’t have to use it all, but don’t be concerned when some of it absorbs into the batter).  
11. Bake for 15-16 minutes, or until the muffins are set, are slightly browned, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out basically clean.  Cool in pan 5 minutes before transferring to rack to finish cooling.

NOM.