THE ORIGINAL ‘RECEIPT’

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS.

Cream one-fourth cup butter, and add gradually, while beating constantly, one-third cup sugar and one egg well beaten.  Mix and sift two and one-third cups pastry flour, four teaspoons baking powder and one-half teaspoon salt.  Add to first mixture alternately with one cup milk, then add one cup berries mixed with one-third cup flour.  Bake in buttered gem pans in a moderate oven for thirty minutes, or in a buttered shallow pan if a loaf shape is preferred.

~Culinary Landmarks or Half-Hours with Sault Ste. Marie Housewives. Third Edition; Revised and Enlarged. St. Luke’s Women’s Auxiliary, Sault Ste. Marie, 1909.

THE UPDATED RECIPE

• ¼ c. butter
• ⅓ c. granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 ⅓ c. sifted cake and pastry flour (see my notes below)
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 c. whole milk
• 1 c. wild blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• ⅓ c. sifted cake and pastry flour.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Grease muffin or gem pans with butter.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter with a wooden spoon;  gradually add the sugar and beat in, until light and fluffy.

Beat the egg lightly with a fork or whisk, and then add it to the creamed mixture; beat in well with a wooden spoon.

Sift the flour several times, and then measure it.

To 2 ⅓ cups of sifted flour, add the baking powder and salt, and sift together.

Alternately add portions of the milk, and then the flour mixture to the batter, beginning and ending with the milk;  beat in thoroughly after each addition.

Dredge the blueberries with the ⅓ cup sifted flour;  try to coat all the berries.

Add the dredged berries to the batter, and mix in very carefully, to avoid crushing or breaking the berries.

Spoon the batter into buttered muffin pans, filling them about ⅞ full.

Place immediately in a preheated oven, and bake for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, at 375F, until golden brown.

Yield:  12 to 14 muffins.

These are at their very best when hot from the oven, and served with butter;  their texture is light and delicate, and the flavour of the wild blueberries is delightful.

A note from Patricia: Hot Tip – you can make your own cake and pastry flour! All you need is all-purpose flour and corn starch. Simply sift together 14 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of corn starch, and once sifted, measure out 1 cup. I made this one cup at a time.

These muffins were fluffy and wonderfully tasty. They were not overly sweet, which meant that the flavour of the wild blueberries really shone through. The cake and pastry flour made these light and airy, not dense like a lot of muffins tend to be, and it was refreshing. I used 1:1 gluten free flour when making the pastry flour, I added in about a tablespoon of grated lemon rind to the batter, topped them with a coarse cane sugar prior to baking, and I used frozen wild blueberries (I didn’t defrost them). It all turned out beautifully, and I’ll likely be making these on repeat.

THE BLUEBERRY belongs to the same species as the bilberry, whortleberry, etc.  It is found in most northern countries.  It is a very wholesome and palatable fruit, and its composition is about the same as the whortleberry.

~Smiley’s Cook Book and Universal Household Guide. Chicago: Smiley Publishing Company, 1901. The Toronto Daily Star Edition.

Before toasting a muffin, cut it nearly in two, leaving it slightly attached in the middle. When toasted brown and crisp on both sides, slip the butter into the gaping slit, and serve on a plate not quite red-hot.

~Cassell’s Household Guide: Being A Complete Encyclopoedia of Domestic and Social Economy. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1869. (p. 28)

At the entrance into Rainy Lake we….. Were obliged to take shelter on an island, …. The island was covered with a wonderful profusion of the largest and finest blue-berries, as large as cherries, as delicious as grapes, and with a bloom like a peach, and no stones inside.  We ate them until we could not stand, and then we lay down and ate them again, and fell asleep to wake up and attack them again!  We filled every spare vessel we had with gallons of blue-berries;  we had blue-berry jam, blue-berry bread, and blue-berries in every conceivable shape possible to our limited culinary skill and appliances.

~Huyshe, G.L. The Red River Expedition. London and New York: MacMillan and Co. Toronto: Adam, Stevenson and Co., 1871.