It's Been a Long Time...

... since I've baked.

My mom was out at brunch with her friends and sent me this picture. She loved the presentation and so do I. This is just perfect for the muffins I am making for my co-worker. Her daughter left for college on Saturday after staying at home for a year. She decided to take online classes in order to save money. I could tell that my co-worker was sad about it on Friday and when I asked her about it, she started to cry. Bless her heart. All I know to do is give a hug, say a prayer for her, and bake something for her and her hubby.

I have fresh blueberries in the fridge so I chose to make blueberry streusel muffins. Ok, quick tangent. I LOVE these Tupperware things. They keep my fruits and veggies so fresh for SO long. I think I've had these blueberries for over 3 weeks and look at them!
I made a few modifications to this recipe (see below) and I love how they turned out. I never have milk in the house and I don't usually like using powdered milk because I can really taste it in the finished product. Why didn't I run out to the store you ask? Because I'm working on a few projects and because it's too dang hot. So instead, I used this stuff You need the same amount of water as milk. So this recipe calls for 1 cup. I used 1 cup of water and then added the suggested amount of buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients. Easy Peesie! *Just a side note. If you go out and purchase this wonderful powder, transfer it to a sealed container when you get home. It will get all clumpy if you don't. Many a times, I've run the powder through my blender to break it down. What a pain.

Last night I prepared these parchment papers (so that there was time for the ink to dry) that I cut into 6"x6" squares and stamped them with different sentiments. The "With Love" is for my co-worker and my bf, the other ones are for my other co-workers (because I can't leave anyone out). Use something that is as big as the base of the muffin tin to push the paper in. Then fill with batter. Here's my muffin tin all filled up with the streusel on top. And here they are finished.


*Squeals* OMGoodness! I love how they turned out!! Think of all the ways you can personalize this for a special someone or special occasion!
Here's how I packaged it for my co-worker and her hubby.

Here's how I packaged it for my bf & other co-workers.
Here's the recipe with my modifications:
Ingredients
1 cup milk/or water if using buttermilk powder substitute
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries or frozen blueberries *Coat with flour
STREUSEL TOPPING
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons oatmeal

Directions
1Heat oven to 400 degrees.
2Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups, 2-1/2 X 1-1/4 inches, or paper lined cups.
3Beat the milk, oil, vanilla extract and egg.
4Stir in the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt all at once until flour is moist (should be lumpy). Add the blueberries, combine and divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
5Sprinkle each using about 2 tsp of the prepared topping.
6Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
7Remove from pan right away.

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