That Time I Made Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins

On Facebook last week, someone posted the recipe for Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins. Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins either evoke a mouthwatering reaction or they don’t. I’m in the former category.  Today I made them, sort of.

I retrieved all of the ingredients from the cupboards, a mixing bowl, muffin pan, electric beaters, utensils and I was ready to go. What transpired next was anything but the Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffin recipe.

Step one: Slowly cream the butter and sugar. With laser focus I began, unfortunately when I initially read the recipe my brain read, “Slowly cream the butter and flour.” As I plunged the beaters into the bowl containing the butter and flour, white powdery plumes began floating and flying out of the bowl. I immediately stopped the process and consulted the recipe. “Slowly cream the butter and sugar.” This also explains the step that called for “Sift the dry ingredients,” which I sneered and mocked on my first read through since the flour was already accounted for in the bowl. This is stupid I thought, I guess I’ll sift the sugar and baking powder, whatever.

I looked at the bowl and had a critical decision to make. Dump and start over or keep forging ahead. Drawing inspiration from Bluto in Animal House, “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” No! I marched onward.

I know, especially with baking recipes, that chemistry can be crucial to the order of ingredients but I wasn’t fond of wasting the stick of butter and 2 cups of flour. I decided screw chemistry (honestly I hated the subject in high school anyway), I would simply add all of the ingredients and give it a mix. I cracked the two eggs and threw them in along with the ½ cup of milk.

Next came the sugar. I got the ½ cup and began filling it…with salt. Luckily I caught my error and aborted before adding it to the bowl. I added the proper amount of sugar, salt, and baking powder. Next came the vanilla. As I looked at the recipe and found the amount for vanilla my eyes wandered one line up and I saw 2 Tablespoons. I poured one and added into the bowl and as I began pouring the 2^nd one I thought, “I haven’t done a lot of baking but I don’t ever remember using this much vanilla. I consulted the recipe again and saw it called for 1 teaspoon of vanilla. So they’ll be a little more “vanilla-ey,” I like vanilla.

I combined the ingredients in a bowl, folding in a small amount of crushed blueberries and it looked pretty much like muffin batter to me. I decided in the interest of a good mix, I would go back to the electric beaters. As they began spinning, the beaters pulled the thick batter in and basically 75% of what was in the bowl had collected around them. I scraped the batter from the beaters, another disaster averted.

I decided to quit while I was ahead and transferred the batter into the muffin pan. When I first announced I wanted to make the muffins, Katie had researched that the recipe would make 10 muffins. I filled the muffin pan as directed and lo and behold I had 10 muffins ready to go!

When the oven finished preheating, I placed the pan in the oven, closed the door, set the timer and felt confident I had navigated all of the self-inflicted landmines. I laughed to myself that if the muffins came out fine I would share my experience. As I mentally began drafting the story, I realized one more thing, I hadn’t added any sugar to the tops of the muffins. Twelve minutes into the baking process, I removed the muffins from the oven, sloppily added sugar to the partially cooked tops and returned them into the oven.

At the 30 minute mark, I removed the muffins from the oven and placed on a wire rack. After cooling for twenty minutes I took one out, still warm, added butter. They came out perfect, absolutely delicious! Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins, pfffftt, no problem.