Baking

Blueberry Day

August 1, 2022 annbh3563 Comments

seven blueberry muffins on a blue plate resting on a wood table

While it is officially National Swiss Day (celebratory greetings to all my Swiss cousins!) I have declared this to be Blueberry Day at our house. I am feeling a time crunch to put our freshly picked produce to good use before leaving for Boston – but more about upcoming travels in tomorrow’s post. A Double Good Blueberry Pie is chilling in the refrigerator and Blueberry Lemon Muffins are on the menu as tomorrow’s breakfast treat with a few tucked into the freezer for frigid January mornings.

We estimate one more picking will complete this season’s crop. Our four bushes have produced 16.25 cups thus far; much better than last summer’s yield of only 9.5 cups but not nearly up to the bountiful summers of 2019 and 2020 with 24 and 25 cups, respectively.

The Double Good Blueberry Pie is super easy and, as promised, doubly good with two cups of fresh berries serving as the fruit base in a baked pie shell then topped with two cups of cooked glazed berries. We will add a dollop of Crème Fraîche to make it extra festive.

As I misplaced the paper copy of the Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins (shared by Betty D. last summer) and the web address produced an error message, I spent this morning recipe sleuthing (always a fun task.) The Preppy Kitchen covered my bases – blueberries, lemon and sour cream – although my muffins exclude the streusel topping, all the better to enjoy the berries.

Bon Appétit!

Baking

New Year’s Cherry Pie

January 1, 2021October 21, 2021 annbh356Leave a comment

At precisely midnight, we rang the Swiss cow bell, a 1982 souvenir that sits on our kitchen window sill, to usher out the old year in raucous fashion and toasted the new year with a glass of bubbly. Today, my first bake of 2021 is a cherryly delicious welcome to a new year.

Blueberries – first to last

August 6, 2020August 6, 2020 annbh3561 Comment

When we started harvesting blueberries last month, we doubted we would meet the bountiful 24 cups we picked last summer. But the wonders of the Great Mother never cease to amaze and we have enjoyed 25 cups from our four small bushes. So delicious have been the muffins, ice cream glazes, and pies (two lemon sour cream and one traditional) with plenty simply nibbled that none were frozen. While we may regret our greediness in the depth of winter blues, the fresh berries were just too tempting. Since today’s last picking only yielded enough (0.5 cup) for tomorrow’s Honey Nut Cheerios breakfast, I am repurposing the photo from our first picking.