Making Strawberry Jam Muffins — Photos

As an effort to diversify my offerings of muffins for my mom, I learned how to make these delicious muffins containing strawberry jam, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mom likes them so much that she declared that she likes them a lot better than both the bran muffins and the yoghurt muffins I make for her!

Note that while this recipe can be easily multiplied several times to make more muffins at once, this recipe is intentionally tailored to a half dozen muffins instead of the usual custom of a dozen muffins, since the original recipe on which it was based allows it to be halved and therefore be baked in a countertop convection oven.

In addition to this recipe, the following recipes can (usually, depending on oven size and specific dimensions) be made directly without adjustment in a countertop convection oven:

As well, here are a number of my other recipes which allow for adjusting by half to be made, or can otherwise easily be made (sometimes in shifts), in a countertop convection oven:

Making the muffins:

First, my countertop convection oven was turned on and set to 350F (yes, the photo says 86F, it’s preheating!):

Countertop convection oven turned on to be preheated
Countertop convection oven turned on to be preheated

A muffin baking tin and some paper muffin liners were taken out:

Muffin baking tin and paper muffin liners taken out

Paper muffin liners were placed in each of the wells of the muffin baking tin:

Paper muffin liners placed in muffin baking tin wells

A mixing bowl, a fork, and a spoon were taken out:

Mixing bowl, fork, and spoon taken out

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out, and some flour was measured out:

Flour taken out and measured out

The flour was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Flour transferred to mixing bowl
Flour transferred to mixing bowl
Flour transferred to mixing bowl
Flour transferred to mixing bowl

Sugar and a measuring cup were taken out, and some sugar was measured out:

Sugar taken out and measured out

The sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour:

Sugar transferred to mixing bowl
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl

Baking soda and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some baking soda was measured out:

Baking soda taken out and measured out

The baking soda was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour and the sugar:

Baking soda transferred to mixing bowl
Baking soda transferred to mixing bowl
Baking soda transferred to mixing bowl

Cinnamon and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some cinnamon was measured out:

Cinnamon taken out and measured out

The cinnamon was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, and baking soda:

Cinnamon transferred to mixing bowl
Cinnamon transferred to mixing bowl

Nutmeg and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some nutmeg was measured out:

Nutmeg taken out and measured out

The nutmeg was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, and cinnamon:

Nutmeg transferred to mixing bowl
Nutmeg transferred to mixing bowl

Salt and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some salt was measured out:

Salt taken out and measured out

The salt was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg:

Salt transferred to mixing bowl
Salt transferred to mixing bowl

A fork was taken out and used to mix the dry ingredients:

Dry ingredients mixed with a fork
Dry ingredients mixed with a fork

A box of eggs was taken out:

Eggs taken out

An egg was taken out of the box of eggs:

Egg taken out

The egg was cracked on the edge of the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients:

Egg cracked into mixing bowl
Egg cracked into mixing bowl

Milk and a measuring cup were taken out, and some milk was measured out, but the milk was not yet transferred to the mixing bowl:

Milk taken out and measured out but not yet transferred to mixing bowl

Vegetable oil was taken out, and some oil was measured out in the measuring cup while the milk was still in it, but the milk and oil were not yet transferred to the mixing bowl:

Oil taken out and measured out but not yet transferred to mixing bowl

Strawberry jam was taken out, and some strawberry jam was measured out into the measuring cup with the milk and vegetable oil:

Strawberry jam taken out and measured out
Strawberry jam measured out

The milk, vegetable oil, and the strawberry jam were transferred to the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients and the egg:

Milk, oil, and strawberry jam transferred to mixing bowl
Milk, oil, and strawberry jam transferred to mixing bowl
Milk, oil, and strawberry jam transferred to mixing bowl
Milk, oil, and strawberry jam transferred to mixing bowl

The ingredients were mixed together with the fork:

Ingredients mixed with a fork

The batter was transferred to the paper liners in the muffin baking tin, using a spoon:

Batter transferred to paper liners in muffin baking tin
Batter transferred to paper liners in muffin baking tin

The filled muffin baking tin was transferred to the pre-heated countertop convection oven:

Muffin baking tin with batter placed in countertop convection oven

A timer was set to 23 minutes:

Timer set to 23 minutes

While the muffins were baking, a cooling rack was taken out:

Cooling rack taken out

Here’s a picture of the muffins rising while baking:

Muffins rising while baking

At the end of the 23 minutes when the muffins were baked, the muffin baking tin with the muffins were taken out of the countertop convection oven:

Muffins taken out of countertop convection oven

The muffins were taken out of the muffin baking tin and placed on the cooling rack:

Muffins placed on cooling rack

A muffin (in the case of this photo, from a subsequent batch) was taken out to serve to mom:

A delicious muffin is served!

Mom loves these delicious muffins a lot these days!

… and I froze the rest of muffins in a freezer bag, as I did with muffins from a subsequent batch:

Extra muffins placed in freezer bag for freezing

Mom now says that these are her favourites!

Making my Mom’s Raisin Bran Muffins

My cooking projects over the past couple of weeks — I took last weekend off after the double-length feature post I did a couple of weeks ago — included bran muffins for my mom (using a different recipe from this post), crisped rice treats, three to five ingredient biscuits, plain cake with a lemon sauce, and the subject of this post, my mom’s recipe for raisin bran muffins; the other day, I had a sudden hankering for my mom’s molasses-based recipe for raisin bran muffins.

The recipe I’ve been using to make bran muffins for mom for the past couple of years is different from her recipe, since following a bake-off a couple of years ago, she chose the recipe I’d found on the internet over her recipe. However, after baking these muffins, mom sampled one, and asked me to make a batch of double-sized muffins for her using her recipe!

Making the raisin bran muffins:

First, a muffin baking tin was taken out, and each well was lined with a standard paper muffin cup:

Muffin baking tin lined with paper muffin cups

The baking tin filled with muffin paper cups was put aside.

The oven was preheated to 450F:

Oven preheated to 450F

Brown sugar was measured out:

Brown sugar measured out

The brown sugar was transferred to a mixing bowl:

Brown sugar transferred to mixing bowl
Brown sugar transferred to mixing bowl

Vegetable oil was measured out:

Vegetable oil measured out

The vegetable oil was poured into the mixing bowl with the brown sugar:

Vegetable oil poured into mixing bowl
Vegetable oil poured into mixing bowl

The vegetable oil and the brown sugar were mixed together with a fork:

Vegetable oil and brown sugar mixed with a fork
Vegetable oil and brown sugar mixed with a fork

Molasses was measured out:

Molasses measured out

The molasses was poured into the mixing bowl with the vegetable oil and brown sugar:

Molasses poured into mixing bowl with vegetable oil and brown sugar
Molasses poured into mixing bowl with vegetable oil and brown sugar

The molasses, vegetable oil, and brown sugar were mixed with a fork:

Molasses, vegetable oil, and brown sugar mixed with fork

In order to blend the molasses better with the other ingredients, the mixing bowl was warmed a bit in a microwave oven:

Mixing bowl placed in a microwave oven

… and the microwave oven set to 15 seconds:

Microwave oven set to 15 seconds

The mix was lightly warmed, mixed again with a fork, and the process repeated.

Eggs were taken out:

Eggs taken out

The eggs were cracked into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients:

Egg cracked into mixing bowl
Eggs cracked into mixing bowl

The ingredients were mixed again with a fork:

Ingredients mixed with a fork

Milk was measured out:

Milk measured out

The milk was poured into the mixing bowl:

Milk poured into mixing bowl
Milk poured into mixing bowl

The ingredients in the mixing bowl were mixed again with a fork:

Ingredients mixed with fork

Bran was measured out:

Bran measured out

The bran was added to the mixing bowl with the wet ingredients:

Bran added to mixing bowl
Bran added to mixing bowl

The bran was mixed into the wet ingredients with a fork:

Bran and wet ingredients mixed with fork

Flour was measured out:

Flour measured out

Baking powder was measured out:

Baking powder measured out

The baking powder was transferred to the flour:

Baking powder transferred to flour

Baking soda was measured out:

Baking soda measured out

The baking soda was transferred to the flour and baking powder:

Baking soda transferred to flour and baking powder

Salt was measured out:

Salt measured out

The salt was transferred to the flour, baking powder, and baking soda:

Salt transferred to the flour, baking powder, and baking soda
Flour, baking powder, and baking soda

The flour, baking powder, and baking soda were mixed together with a fork:

Flour, baking powder, and baking soda mixed with a fork
Flour, baking powder, and baking soda mixed with a fork

The flour mix was transferred to the wet ingredients:

Flour mix transferred to wet ingredients
Flour mix transferred to wet ingredients

The flour mix was mixed with the wet ingredients (oops I forgot to take a photo).

Raisins were measured out:

Raisins measured out

The raisins were added to the wet ingredients (oops I again forgot to take a photo) and everything was again mixed with a fork:

Ingredients mixed with a fork

The muffin baking tin with the paper muffin cups prepared earlier was taken out, ready to transfer the muffin batter:

Muffin baking tin with paper muffin cups taken out

The muffin batter was transferred to the paper muffin cups:

Muffin batter transferred to paper muffin cups
Muffin batter transferred to paper muffin cups

The muffin baking tin filled with muffin batter was placed in the preheated oven:

Muffin baking tin placed in preheated oven

A timer was set to 18 minutes:

Timer set to 18 minutes

When the muffins were baked, they were taken out of the oven …

Baked muffins in oven about to be taken out

… and placed on a cooling rack:

Hot baked muffins placed on a cooling rack

The muffins were taken out of the baking tin and placed on the cooling rack:

Hot baked muffins placed on a cooling rack

When the muffins were cooled, they were placed in a cleaned reused freezer bag:

Cooled muffins placed in a freezer bag

The bag of cooled muffins were placed in the freezer:

Bag of muffins placed in freezer

… and the next morning, breakfast was delicious!

Breakfast is served!

Of course they are yummy!

Making Bran Muffins — Photos

Here is the next entry in my series of photo posts of me making the various recipes in my recipe collection.

This week, I took photos while I made more bran muffins for my mom, using a recipe I’d found on allrecipes.com and which so far I have not yet which I have now (20210214) converted into my own format. As a side note, I should I have now converted it to my usual recipe format, because when I make them, I use regular milk instead of buttermilk, and I normally make a major change: Instead of placing the batter into twelve muffin papers in a twelve-welled baking tin, I bake the batter in a six-welled baking tin (with slightly larger wells), lined with coffee filter papers, and the baking time was adjusted to 22 minutes.

This batch of muffins had a further deviation from the recipes above, which was the intentional omission of raisins for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

First, I measured out a cup and a half of wheat bran into a mixing bowl:

A cup and a half of wheat bran

A cup of milk was added to the bran:

A cup of milk added to the bran

The bran and milk were mixed with a fork, and put aside:

Mixing the bran and milk

A third of a cup of vegetable oil was measured out and placed in a separate bowl (the white dots are milk leftover in the measuring cup):

1/3 cup vegetable oil measured out

A large egg was added to the vegetable oil:

A large egg added to the vegetable oil

Two thirds of a cup of packed brown sugar were added to the oil and egg:

2/3 cup (packed) brown sugar added to the vegetable oil and egg

A teaspoon of vanilla extract was added to the vegetable oil, egg, and brown sugar:

A teaspoon of vanilla extract added to oil, egg, and brown sugar

The vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract were blended with a fork:

Blending of vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract

The vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract were added to the bran and milk mix:

Vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract added to the bran and milk mix

All the ingredients were blended together with a fork:

The ingredients were blended together

A teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda were added to a cup of flour — unfortunately, I forgot to add the quarter teaspoon of salt, to no apparent ill effect.

A teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda added to a cup of flour; salt was forgotten

The flour, baking powder, and baking soda were mixed together in the cup, and added to the rest of the ingredients:

Flour, baking powder, and baking soda mix were added to the rest of the ingredients, and then blended together

Again, all the ingredients were blended together with a fork. At this point, I would normally have added three quarters of a cup of raisins, which I didn’t do this time.

I make double sized muffins for my mom, so I use coffee filter papers, for which I use a glass to help form within the baking tin:

Forming the coffee filter paper in the baking tin wells

The batter was spooned into each of the wells:

Muffin batter spooned into each of six baking tin wells

The muffin tin was placed in a counter-top convection oven preheated to 350F, and baked for 22 minutes (rotated 180 degrees part way through):

Muffins baking in a counter-top convection oven.

The muffins were taken out of the oven after 22 minutes and placed on a cooling rack:

Baked muffins placed on a cooling rack

After a few minutes, the still cooling muffins were taken out of the baking tin, and returned to the cooling rack to continue cooling:

Baked muffins placed on a cooling rack

Once cooled, I placed the muffins in a sealed container.

Mom was so impressed, she said that the following morning, she would have one from this batch, before eating the last muffin from the last batch!