Blackberry vs. Raspberry Muffins, or what can happen when not everyone likes the same berry.

Hello everyone, my name is Rochelle and I don't like raspberries. I've never liked them unless it's that blue raspberry candy type, the normal fruit just doesn't make my taste buds happy (I'm like this with oranges too, but in reverse. I like orange and orange juice but orange flavored anything, no thank you!). My hubby on the other hand loves them. So what do I do to try to compromise? Get both raspberries and blackberries!

I hadn't come up with anything to use them in so I decided that I was going to make my own muffins (not a mix like I've done in the past). I chose this because the little one LOVES muffins and I hadn't done it in a LONG time. So I looked all over the net to find a muffin recipe that I had the ingredients for and came across Nook & Pantry. There was the perfect recipe, not too hard to do, I already had all the ingredients and I could add any kind of berry I wanted to it and it would still be great.

Muffin Recipe (adapted from Nook & Pantry's Blackberry Muffins)

2 cup all purpose flour (1 cup unbleached, 1 cup wheat)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup 0% plain yogurt
3/4 cup milk (the original asks for buttermilk, but I never any)
4 Tbsp melted butter, cooled
1 1/4 cup berries
1 Tbsp lemon juice

(The above ingredients are for one batch, I however made 2 because I chose to separate my raspberries and my blackberries)


Pre-heat the oven to 350F. It is suggested that you either use frozen berries or take the fresh ones and put them on a plate as one layer and freeze them enough to harden slightly. This will keep them from all breaking as soon as you add them to the batter. Rinse your berries and let them drain, I then returned mine to the freezer so they would not thaw out while I made the batter. In a large bowl mix (whisking makes it easier to evenly mix them) together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a another bowl mix (whisking works great here too)add egg, sugar, and yogurt. Combine well and add in milk and butter, again mixing well. Add berries to the dry ingredient bowl, then adding wet ingredients. Fold (do not whisk or stir as the berries will break up... they do anyways with folding but not as bad as they would with stirring or whisking) everything together, be careful not to over mix but don't leave pockets of flour (the original recipe says streaks of flour are ok).

Spoon your batter into the muffin pan, distributing the batter evenly. Bake about 20-25 minutes, using the toothpick test to make sure they are done ( stick a toothpick in to the muffin and if it comes out clean they are ready). Remove and cool 5-10 minutes before eating.

Now I said I made two batches. One raspberry (came out perfect) and the other was blackberry. I made the raspberry especially for the hubby and the little one, thinking I was doing something they would both love and was going to do blackberry more for myself (and for them if they wanted them of course :) ). I had decided that instead of making muffins with the blackberry batter, I was going to use my square non-stick cake pan (its not really a pan its made of plastic and can be very very flimsy).

I don't have very much counter space in my kitchen and what little counter space I have is usually taken up by a few canisters for sugar, coffee, flour, etc or the microwave and the dish drainer. I've had problems with dropping things before in the kitchen, and of course I had the same problem this time with my blackberry batter. The pan fell as I was filling it. I was lucky enough to not have put it all in there and had enough to make two muffins for myself!

Now if this wasn't enough (I had already been in the kitchen whipping up 2 batches of muffin batter, spent a couple of hours looking up recipes) but then I burned myself taking out the raspberry muffins(this is nothing new to anyone in a kitchen, burns and cuts are part of the job of cooking), but when I gave the little one a muffin, I got to hear that he didn't like the raspberries in it! I wanted to cry, from frustration. I didn't but I wasn't as happy as I was when I started, hehe.

The hubby loved the raspberry muffins however and ate all of them except two (I tried one and said no thanks to the rest, but my blackberry ones were good too bad I only got to have 2 :( ) and the one the little one ate all but the berry parts.

We did however have a discussion the next day about how I was trying to make healthy food and I had tried really hard to do something that I was sure he was going to like to find out I had failed. He told me he was sorry and he suggested I try to make muffins with grapes (he loves grapes). Since I've never heard of such a thing I'm willing to give it a try!