Birthday Blueberry Muffins

My gift to Dad three birthdays ago.

Today is my father's birthday, and it's not one that ends in '0' or '5' and the family celebration is tomorrow, because today is a work day for those of us not retired.  (Or a school day for the granddaughter working on her master's degree.)  I didn't want to skip observing the day itself, so on my morning walk, when I usually stop at my parents' house to take in their newspaper (and thus my mother, checking their security camera footage when she awakens, sees that I am alive) I took over some decorations.  Now their streetside tree has dangling festive signs and there is a huge "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" strung across their porch.

I also left a card, and for a proper observance, a small gift of blueberry muffins.  I debated corn muffins because I have a good boxed mix in the pantry, but it makes a dozen and I wanted just a few.  So I pulled out one of my old cookbooks:

  

This book was well-used before I acquired it, and I've cooked out of it before.  It has several muffin recipes including a basic one that I knew I could play with to make it a bit special.  Since I have some fresh blueberries from the local farmstand, I thought I would add some of those.  So I started with the first recipe:

Because I didn't want many muffins and I guessed the recipe would make around a dozen, I cut it in half.  I didn't want to deal with half an egg, so I used the smallest one I have (my brother and sister-in-law's chickens lay various sizes) and adjusted the liquid accordingly.  And forgot to take photos of the process.

For my half-batch recipe, I used the following:

• one-half cup of whole-wheat flour
• one-half cup of all-purpose flour
• two teaspoons of baking powder
• about a half tablespoon (generous) of white sugar
• one egg (medium-sized, approximately)
• one tablespoon of cooking oil
• vanilla water to make a batter
• enough blueberries

I mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl, added the egg and oil, and stirred just to get the egg broken up and mixed in a bit.  'Vanilla water' is the result of my finishing a bottle of vanilla extract and filling it with water, so I have flavoured water to use in baking and get a bit more goodness out of the bottle.  I didn't measure, I just added until the consistency was about right.  I had to add a little plain water at the end.  Then I washed and stirred in blueberries until it looked like enough of them.  Maybe half a cup?  Or so.

I didn't grease the muffin tins, I used festive papers, and I filled them quite full.  If I had done the recipe amount in each cup I would have had six, but I ended up with five - one for me, and four for my parents:

I sprinkled some sparkling sugar on top of the muffins before baking, to give a bit of a bakery touch.  They took almost 25 minutes at 400°F.  I happened to have a four-muffin box handy so packed them up fresh out of the oven and left them on my parents' porch.

Later in the day they reported that the muffins were delicious.  😋😘