Making Plain and Easy Sour Cream Muffins — Photos

I started making these tasty and easy to make muffins as a result of trying to make another kind of muffin (here’s my archive) for my mom, to add a bit more variety to the muffins I make for her. The story to the recipe, for me, had an alluring appeal that seemed to fit the bill. They turned out mostly nicely; however, the experience unfortunately taught me that when a recipe calls for unsalted butter — such as for the topping, especially since it also calls for a “pinch of kosher salt” — one should use unsalted butter. The resulting topping had just enough saltiness, however mild that it was, such that while of course the muffins were really nice, the slight saltiness was a distraction that did not appeal to my mom. (I enjoyed the rest of the muffins, but I agreed with her regarding the distraction.) In the process, I decided that the amount of effort required to execute the recipe was a bit more than I cared for.

As a result though, I had some sour cream for which I had no further use, since I don’t have a taste for sour cream by itself, nor does my mom ask for it for other dishes. And, I was still in the position of needing another muffin recipe to add a bit of variety for Mom. I looked up “sour cream muffins” or somesuch on the internet, and I landed on a recipe here (here’s my archive), which I adjusted down to a half-batch of six muffins that can be easily and quickly made in a countertop convection oven, and which of course scales up to a dozen or more muffins at a time.

Note: Some of the photos were taken somewhat or a bit more out of order, or were outright recreations — albeit all during the preparation of, or immediately after baking, the same batch of muffins, including separately preparing the wet and dry ingredients the night before baking them fresh the morning of for breakfast for Mom — but are presented here in the order presented below for the sake of the narrative.

Making the muffins:

The countertop convection oven was preheated to 350F:

Countertop convection oven turned on
Countertop convection oven set to 350F

A baking tin and paper muffin liners were taken out:

Baking tin and paper muffin liners taken out

Paper muffin liners were placed in the wells:

Paper muffin liner placed in baking tin well
Paper muffin liners placed in baking tin wells

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

Flour and measuring cup taken out

Flour was measured out:

Flour measured out

The flour was transferred to a 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 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 with flour
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour

Baking soda and measuring spoons were taken out:

Baking soda and measuring spoons taken out

Baking soda was measured out:

Baking soda measured out

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

Baking soda transferred to bowl with flour and sugar

Salt and measuring spoons were taken out:

Salt and measuring spoons taken out:

Salt was measured out:

Salt measured out

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

Salt transferred to bowl with flour, sugar, and baking soda

Nutmeg was taken out:

Nutmeg taken out

Nutmeg was measured out:

Nutmeg measured out

Nutmeg was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt:

Nutmeg added to bowl with flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt
Nutmeg added to bowl with flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt

A fork was taken out:

Fork taken out

The dry ingredients were mixed with the fork:

Dry ingredients mixed with fork
Dry ingredients mixed with fork

Sour cream and a measuring cup were taken out:

Sour cream and measuring cup taken out

The sour cream was measured out, and since I was missing a very small amount, I topped it up with a bit of milk:

Sour cream measured out and slightly topped up with milk

The sour cream was transferred back to the plastic container:

Sour cream transferred back to plastic container

Vegetable oil and a measuring cup were taken out, and the oil was measured out:

Vegetable oil and measuring cup taken out, and oil measured out

The vegetable oil was transferred to the container with the sour cream:

Oil transferred to container with sour cream
Oil transferred to container with sour cream
Oil transferred to container with sour cream

Eggs were taken out:

Eggs taken out
Egg taken out

The egg was cracked with a spoon:

Egg cracked

The egg was transferred to the container with the sour cream and vegetable oil

Egg transferred to container with sour cream and oil

Vanilla extract and measuring spoons were taken out:

Vanilla extract and measuring spoons taken out

The vanilla extract was measured out:

Vanilla extract measured out

The vanilla extract was transferred to the container with the sour cream, vegetable oil, and egg:

Vanilla extract added to container with sour cream, vegetable oil, and egg

The wet ingredients were mixed together:

Wet ingredients thoroughly mixed

(As mentioned earlier, at this point, the container had been sealed and placed in the refrigerator overnight, and the dry ingredients had been sealed and kept on the counter overnight; as well, immediately prior to the next step listed below is when the countertop convection oven had actually been turned on and preheated.)

The wet ingredients were brought over to the dry ingredients, and a clean fork and spoon were taken out:

Wet ingredients brought to the dry ingredients

The wet ingredients were transferred to the bowl with the dry ingredients:

Wet ingredients transferred to bowl with dry ingredients
Wet ingredients transferred to bowl with dry ingredients

The last bits of the wet ingredients were scraped into the bowl using a spoon:

Wet ingredients transferred to bowl with dry ingredients, and last bits scraped into bowl using spoon

A fork was taken out to start mixing the wet and dry ingredients:

Fork taken out to mix wet and dry ingredients

The wet and dry ingredients were mixed together with the fork:

Wet and dry ingredients mixed with fork
Wet and dry ingredients mixed with fork

The baking tin with the paper muffin liners was brought over to the bowl with the mixed ingredients:

Baking tin with paper muffin liners taken out

The muffin dough was transferred to the paper muffin liners in the baking tin:

Muffin dough transferred to paper muffin liners
Muffin dough transferred to paper muffin liners

The muffin tin filled with muffin dough was placed in the preheated countertop convection oven …

Muffin tin placed in preheated countertop convection oven

… and a timer was set to 22 minutes:

Timer set to 22 minutes

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

Cooling rack taken out

At about half-way (after about 11 minutes), the baking tin was rotated in the countertop convection oven, to help ensure even baking:

Almost 11 minutes passing, the rough halfway point during baking

… and at this point, the muffins had clearly begun to rise:

Muffins rising at roughly halfway point in baking

At the end of the baking period, here are the fully baked muffins, which had begun to brown:

Fully baked muffins while still in the countertop convection oven — note the light browning

The muffin tin was taken out of the countertop convection oven and placed on a board, ready for the muffins to be removed from the baking tin, and placed on the cooling rack:

Fully baked muffins taken out of countertop convection oven

The muffins were immediately — hot! hot! hot! — removed from the muffin baking tin …

Hot muffin removed from muffin tin

… and placed on the cooling rack:

Hot muffin placed on cooling rack

… which was continued until all the muffins …

All muffins removed from baking tin

… had been transferred to the cooling rack:

All muffins transferred to cooling rack

Here’s the bottom of a muffin that had sufficiently cooled in order to safely handle it:

Browning on bottom of cooled muffin

A still warm and definitely fresh! muffin was placed on a plate, and the paper liner was carefully removed (so as to not tear off pieces from the muffin):

Muffin paper liner removed from fresh muffin

… and the muffin was ready to serve to Mom, along with a cup of coffee:

Fresh, still warm muffin ready to be served

Of course, Mom said that the muffin was tasty!

After the muffins had completely cooled, a plastic freezer bag that was previously used for freezing sour cream muffins was taken out:

Freezer bag taken out and identified

The bag was opened, and a cooled muffin was placed inside the bag:

Cooled muffin placed in identified freezer bag

… and the rest of the cooled muffins were placed inside the bag:

Cooled muffins placed in freezer bag

The freezer bag was sealed, and placed in the freezer, for future enjoying by Mom!

Bag of cooled muffins placed in freezer

Podcasts, Google NotebookLM, and my Making Coffee post

As indicated at the beginning of the previous post about making coffee, the post was mounted, definitely tongue-in-cheek, as a result of a podcast created by Google NotebookLM about a previous blog post I’d mounted about making yoghurt muffins.

As part of the initial vision I had when I started to mount the post about making coffee, it was a foregone conclusion that a new podcast be generated as a result. As such, my brother and I tried to make podcasts about the post using Google’s NotebookLM Podcast Generator.

I had a few objectives about how the podcast should be structured:

  • There should be a bent that both the post as well as the podcast were inspired by the previous podcast on yoghurt muffins;
  • There was a hope that the new podcast would be somewhat (read I had an expectation of it being “sufficiently”) self-aware, including that the previous podcast was created “by the same hosts”, and therefore, that “the hosts” would at an obvious juncture make a comment to the effect of “In a previous podcast, we jovially suggested that the blog post author create another blog post about making morning coffee, and whaddya know, they did!”;
  • When supplying Google NotebookLM with source material, I entered an expressed expectation that there be a certain incredulity on the parts of the “hosts” that, albeit tongue-in-cheek, that I followed up on the jovial suggestion that I make such a blog post in the original podcast (at about 3:49), as well as the previous two points.

Unfortunately, the results were less than satisfactory.

  • The first podcast that was created, using the original yoghurt muffins post as one of several pieces of source material, seemed to focus more on the post on the yoghurt muffins than the post on making coffee;
  • Said first podcast generally seemed to rehash the podcast on the yoghurt muffins, often word for word or at least re-phrasings;
  • Throughout several of the podcasts that were created, there seemed to be lot more of what I will call psychobabble that came through multiple times, analyzing myself, and went on tangents on how to look at things differently in life — comments which, in general terms, were not fully inaccurate, but which were general human nature and not really what we were looking for. Ultimately there were increasing departures from the content, even ignoring the meta and self-referential parts.
  • The podcasts became increasingly long, one being at least 15 minutes long.

Ultimately, NotebookLM seemed unable — perhaps by design or a known lack thereof, and certainly at what would constitute a cursory glance — to handle levity, self-awareness, and meta conversations / commentary.

Anyway, here is the podcast I settled on after a few tries and was frustrated with the general results; it at least does discuss somewhat the meta nature of the post, as well as just barely enough of the coffee part when taken at face value.

Sigh. (Meaning, I guess that if I want a podcast creator that does what I want, I should find out if such exists. Or, I dunno, make a real life podcast myself.)

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!