Review: Duncan Hines Simple Mornings muffin mix

This post is a quick review of Duncan Hines Simple Mornings Wild Maine Blueberry premium muffin mix. The verdict is that this box of muffin mix makes delicious muffins. I will be buying these again and recommend them to anyone who likes blueberry muffins.

A good muffin recipe seems to be a difficult thing to find. I have a few recipes that I use, but they are either too heavy or too sweet. Because of this, I occasionally buy packages of muffin mix so I don't have to go through all that work for inadequate muffins. A few weeks ago I found this muffin mix at the store and it immediately ended up in my basket. When I got home I made the muffins and ate 3 of them soon after baking.

When I bought this muffin mix I didn't realize that it included real blueberries, even though it says so right on the box. The blueberries were packed in a tin with water. They weren't overly squishy and were in decent condition.

The batter was easy to mix. Just add eggs, oil, and water. (I didn't see dry milk in the ingredient list, so that's an extra bonus for me. I can consider this a dairy free snack!)

It makes enough batter for 12 medium sized muffins or 6 large muffins. Possibly 24 mini muffins.

They baked nicely and the blueberries didn't sink to the bottom, which is always a worry when baking with berries!

I'm glad Duncan Hines made this new muffin mix and I hope the stores here continue to carry it. It isn't expensive and makes muffins that are much better than the ones I can buy at the store bakery! The box also has directions to make a quick bread out of the mix, but I haven't tried that yet.

Blueberry Muffins 2

Blueberries were on sale recently and they were very delicious. One of the places I put the blueberries was inside of these blueberry muffins.

I was unsure if I liked this recipe better than the previous recipe I made, so I remade those. This recipe makes a muffin that is a bit denser and has a different flavor. I think I like these better than the previous recipe. I certainly ate more of this batch!

Blueberry Muffins 2 (Printer friendly PDF version)

1/2 C butter, softened

2/3 C sugar

1 C milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 C flour

4 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 C blueberries

Cream together the butter and the sugar. I did everything with a wooden spoon.

Stir in the milk as best you can. Add the egg as well!

Throw in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.

Fold in the blueberries. Be gentle or they can burst open! This doesn't ruin the recipe, it just causes the muffins to be streaked blue!

Pour into greased muffin pans and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes or until done.

Cool completely.

Enjoy! 

Blueberry Muffins

Muffins are delicious and easy to make. I think I've mentioned that a time or two. They may be evil in the mini form, but they seem to be happy and content in the blueberry form.

This recipe comes straight from one of the recipe books I have, unlike the previous muffin recipes which I pieced together from the internet. The main part of this muffin is delicious and moist and the blueberries go with it very well. I have used a few a muffin recipes where the batter is awful and the fruit can't even save it. Since this recipe is very simple and results in edible food, I will make them in the future.

Since few people here seem to like blueberry muffins, I cut the recipe in half which made 9 muffins. The muffins are amazing and I'm glad I decided to make them today! They are so good that my nephew tried to eat my hand to get more. There aren't many muffins left and I just made them a few hours ago.

Blueberry Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C flour
1 C sugar
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C vegetable oil
1 C milk
1 t vanilla
2 C frozen (thawed) or fresh blueberries

Place the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir them up a bit.

Add the wet ingredients and mix until combined. The batter will be lumpy, so don't over mix.

Fold in the blueberries until they seem distributed rather well. Shouldn't take much effort.

Spoon into greased muffin pans or liners. Fill them 2/3 full. Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar if you want.

Bake at 400 for 18 - 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Coffee Puffs

The fun thing about making food from recipes that are completely new to you is the chance of failure. This attempt resulted in failure. The failure ended up in the garbage. The recipe, if you follow it properly, should turn out fine. Just don't accidentally add too much flour or it won't rise.

When I get more yeast, I'll make these again and post a picture of the delicious outcome.

Cinnamon Coffee Puffs (Printer-friendly PDF Version of fixed recipe)
1 cake yeast (or packet dry active yeast)
1/4 C lukewarm water
1 C milk
2 T sugar
1/2 C butter
1 t salt
2 eggs
3 1/4 C flour
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 C sugar + 1/4 t cinnamon

Place the yeast in the warm water to soften.

Scald the milk over medium heat. Add the sugar, butter, and salt. Stir until dissolved. Cool to lukewarm.

Place the milk mixture in a mixing bowl. Add the flour, eggs, and yeast. Mix well. Add the vanilla and beat well. (You can see I forgot some of the flour at this point and added it. I actually added too much. Don't do that.)

Cover and let rise for an hour or so until it is light. Stir down and drop into greased muffin pans. Cover and let rise again. (By this point, nothing was rising. But I continued on and hoped for the best.)

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

I made cinnamon muffin bricks instead of cinnamon puffs. Can't be successful every time!

These Muffins are Bananas (w/ Orange Juice Glaze)

There is almost no reason to ever throw away icky bananas. If a banana has a brown spotted peel, it is great for baking. Sometimes, the worse looking the banana is, the better the baked goods will taste. So don't throw away your bananas! If you have two icky bananas, make these muffins. They are delicious.

Banana Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

2 1/2 C flour

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

3/4 C brown sugar

1 C milk

1 egg

2 T butter (softened)

1 1/2 t vanilla

2 ripe bananas

In a bowl, place the flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, smash the bananas. Set aside

Put the milk, egg, butter, and vanilla in yet another bowl. Beat these ingredients together until well combined.

With a fork, combine the ingredients in the flour bowl. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix together until blended.

Add the smashed bananas and mix well.

Put the batter in greased and floured muffin cups. You can also use paper liners.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, or at least cool mostly before eating.

Orange Juice Glaze

1 C powdered sugar

1 T orange juice plus a bit more

Place the powdered sugar in a small bowl or glass measuring cup. Add the 1 T of orange juice. Mix well. Slowly add more orange juice to obtain the desired consistency. Drizzle over cooled muffins.

Evil Mini Muffin Variation

I believe that the only way to properly investigate the evilness of mini muffins is to consider every possible (good tasting) form these muffins take on. Today, we will take a look at streusel cake (aka coffee cake) mini muffins.

These turned out well and nothing strange happened during the baking process. Everyone seemed to enjoy them except for my boyfriend. He kept telling me how terrible they were, yet he couldn't stop eating them. I do believe that is a result of the pure evilness of the mini muffins! I offered to just throw them away for him, but he said he would do it later.

Streusel Mini Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

The base of the muffin is the same as before with a few minor variation. First, don't add the banana. Second, add 1/4 C more milk and 1t more vanilla. Mix according to the instruction.

Streusel topping:
1/3 C flour
1/3 C brown sugar (packed)
1/2 t cinnamon
2 1/2 T butter (chopped into bits)

Combine the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Mix well. Add the chopped butter. With a fork, cut the butter into the sugar mixture until well combined. It will be crumbly and kind of moist. Set in refrigerator until ready to use.

Grease the mini muffin pan. Place a spoonful of batter into each cup (fill each cup 3/4 full). Place half a spoonful of streusel topping on top of the batter in each cup. Add more if you want to. Gently press the topping down.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. The tops won't brown, but the sides and bottom will.

This makes approximately 44 mini muffins.

The Evilness of Mini Muffins

I'm not sure if you know this, but mini muffins are evil incarnate. That is a pure and simple fact. If you deny this, you are probably just under their influence. It is not too late to come to your senses, but it is most likely something you will not be willing to do. It is much easier (and perhaps more enjoyable) to just live in corrupted bliss, unaware that the tiny, adorable muffins are dense with mischief. Perhaps it is time for an intervention of sorts...

We will start with an analysis of the evil in question: the mini muffin. This will allow you to see the muffins for what they truly are. To properly do this, we will need to see and experience how it is created. Perhaps we can pinpoint the wickedness that seems to be inherent in the muffin itself. My only hope is, that during this investigation, we don't fall prey to the mini muffin's demonic spell.

First, gather the ingredients necessary to create mini muffins. You may vary from this recipe slightly, but only in regards to flavoring. The base needs to remain the same if we are to investigate in a scientific manner. All ingredients should be in their pure, unadulterated form.

Mini Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 1/2 C self-raising flour
3/4 C brown sugar
1 C milk
1 egg
2 T butter (or margarine), softened or chopped into small pieces
1 t vanilla
2 ripe bananas, mashed (or whatever you want to flavor the muffins with)

I chose to split the batter into two equal parts and flavor one part banana and the other part chocolate chip. If you follow my example, you will need 1 mashed banana and a variable amount of chocolate chips. The amount of chocolate chips you include depends on how you feel about chocolate. If your muffin batter ends up being more chocolate chips than batter, then I think we may need a different topic for our intervention...

To create the base for the muffin batter, place the milk, egg, vanilla, and butter in a medium mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until it seems well mixed. If you start with cold butter, the batter will be lumpy at this point. Add the flour and brown sugar. Mix in well, at medium speed, until the batter is smooth and creamy.

So far nothing stands out as "evil". It seems to be a normal batter for muffins. 

Place half of the batter into a separate mixing bowl. Add the chocolate chips and mix in. I noticed the batter was thick, so I added 2 tablespoons of milk to the chocolate chip muffin batter. Everything is still normal with the batter.

Place the mashed banana in the other half of the muffin batter and mix it in well. (You will notice at this point why I added the milk to the other batter.) You may, optionally, take a picture of the two flavors of batter at this point to enhance your notes (you are taking notes, right?). 

Grease a mini muffin pan with vegetable shortening. Alternatively, you may use mini muffin liners. The liners make it more difficult to eat the muffins, so greasing the muffin pan adds to laziness. Perhaps this is the beginning of the evil!

Fill the mini muffin cups approximately 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan. The tops of the muffins won't brown, but the sides touching the pan will.

Place the mini muffins in a large bowl to cool. Once cooled, you may place them into bags that zip closed or food storage containers.

The creation process of the mini muffins didn't show any extreme signs of evil, nor does it show how the evil enters the muffin. Perhaps your research showed something different. If so, please share your findings.

After the research on the baking process concluded, I was determined to find more evidence that the muffins are, in fact, evil incarnate. Some number crunching helped me determine that 13.875 batches of muffin batter will produce 666 muffins. I also used a fancy and extremely expensive photo-filter to analyze the pictures that I took of the muffin making process. Nothing surprising showed up in the analysis until the final photo. Here are the images side by side, one before the filter was used and one after.

By now you should see the pure diabolical evil that mini muffins are. They pose as cute and adorable food, but this is a facade. Underneath their soft and moist exterior lies a source of evil that can only lead to gluttony. During the typing of this post, I was willed into eating no less than 8 mini muffins. The ease of eating the muffins paired with the delicious taste make them so tempting... so wrong.

Just remember that people care for you. They care if you gain 20 pounds by eating nothing but mini muffins for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There are people who want to help you. They are not just trying to steal the delectable muffins that you are hoarding on your desk, by your computer. They want you to know that there is more to life than mini muffins. Please let them help you.