Honey Muffin

Taneasha has been telling me lately that I don't make enough chocolate stuff.

So I made honey-blueberry muffins.

Apparently I'm feeling a little contrary today. Today. Ha.

Honey Muffins with Berries

2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup plain yogurt (greek style if you have it)
1/3 cup vegetable oil (peanut works)

2/3 c berries
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp orange juice

 

Preheat oven to 400°F and line your muffin cups.

Realize there was no honey in your ingredients pic. Honey muffins and no honey...

In a big bowl, combine all the dry stuff: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cardamom, sugar. Yes, sugar. I know it usually goes into the wet stuff, or the butter so it will dissolve first, but, as I said, I’m feeling contrary today.

I’m a little concerned about this recipe because my yogurt is a wee bit thicker than your typical yogurt.

Seriously, you could spread this stuff on a bagel and eat it like cream cheese.

The yogurt, honey, and orange juice can be piled into one cup, measure by displacement.

In another bowl, mix all the wet stuff: yogurt, honey, juice, eggs, oil, vanilla.

Before you mix the wet and dry, make sure your berries are thawed. Even looking at the volume in the second bowl, I was still worried about the liquid content.

So, I added a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of juice to a pan with them, and just melted everything. You don’t want them warm, just melted.

And dammit, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get a shot of the orange juice being poured into the pan.

Stir the wet stuff into the dry until it’s just barely mixed. Hm, doesn’t look too dry. This could pass for muffins. But, I’ve got the berries all melted, so in they go.

Again, stir until just mixed. Berries do weird stuff when you mix and bake them. If you stir them too much, they’ll actually turn green. I can't decide if these are green or purple... There's a reason I wear a lot of black.

I had enough for 13 muffins.

The 13th muffin.

I'm still having a bit of trouble with my oven. This time, I erred on the side of too hot - probably at least 425. The muffins were golden on top after only 8 minutes, but still gooey inside. By 15 minutes, they looked like this.

Muffin 13, despite the heat, still lost it's peak in the middle.

I think I need new baking powder.

But heat was definitely a factor in these.

They are tasty though. Very caramelly in flavour as well as colour. And the honey really comes through. I think next time, I'll omit the sugar and add a bit more honey. They're really quite sweet. More blueberries too. Or maybe none?

At least they're not green anymore?

There's pizza in there!

Up here in the frozen north, we have something called a "pizza pop." And despite the ridiculous cold and perpetual snow, a pizza pop is not a pepperoni flavoured ice cream treat.

Why they're called pops we'll probably never know, since they're really more of a calzone. But they are a staple junk food on this side of the 49th and unbelievably easy to replicate.

Home Made (is best) Pizza Pops

• 1 batch of biscuit dough
• 1/2 tin of plain tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• pepperoni
• mozza
• other stuff you like on pizza
• an egg and a bit of water

A note on the cheese: while a soft squishy mozza is nice, it doesn't work well in these. It liquifies too much, and escapes out of the pop to make a lovely cheesey mess all over the baking sheet. I strongly recommend a firmer, drier mozza for these.

I used the garlic salt in the biscuit dough (in place of the regular salt, which is in the picture, but which I didn't use), and then I found the garlic powder (not pictured) in the cupboard and so used it instead of the fresh garlic. And there's no egg. Or biscuit dough. This picture is all kinds of fail.

So, first thing you have to do is make your biscuit dough. I know, I know, it's not pizza dough and calzones are usually made with pizza dough. I don't care. Biscuits are fast, easy, and do not contain yeast. I am really not good with yeast. I seem to kill the poor things with my bare hands. I swear I can feel them dying as I knead.

So, I used biscuit dough, and frankly, it's more like the pop dough anyway. And I'm making pizza pops here.

The pizza sauce is probably the toughest part of this... Put it all in a bowl. Stir. Holy hell, I'm exhausted and I need to sit down for a few minutes.

So, you can either roll out the dough into one big blob and cut circles out of it, or you can roll small blobs of dough into circles. I've done it both ways, and I find that the big blob works best for smaller ones and small blobs work best for larger ones.

Since I was at Recipe Guy's house and making insta-lunches to stock his freezer with, I opted for small blobs to make big pops.

Roll the dough to no more than 3 mm thick (metric, Canadian, plus, looks better than 7/64 inches) and spread it with pizza sauce, leaving about a 1/4 inch (about 6 mm if you're playing along at home) edge all the way around.

Lay on the pepperoni. I only used one layer in this batch, but I think two would be okay. Make a small pile of cheese on one half. Add whatever other toppings you like, and then another small drizzle of sauce.

Fold the non cheese side over the cheese side and proceed with some form of joining of the edges.

Me, I like to roll it by folding the bottom layer up over the top layer. If you prefer to press, (edges of pizza pops are pressed with a fork-like indentation) I suggest you use some kind of fastener, like water, or a bit of egg wash. You're going to have to make the egg wash (beat the egg with the bit of water) anyway, and it makes a pretty decent pastry glue.

Brush them with egg wash and poke the top a few times with a fork. If steam can escape this way, it won't try and bust open an edge to get out.

I baked these at 400 for about 17 minutes.

The pastry is flakey, and handles both the freezer and the microwave well, and the filling is just enough pizza for a quick lunch. You could even eat it one handed.

What else should I stuff my biscuits with?