"Never eat more than you can lift"
-- Miss Piggy
It's Saskatoon season! The delicious berries are popping up all over the place from pick you own's to roadside purchases by the delicious bucketful. I am lucky enough to have a friend who has a friend who has lots of berries just ready for the picking. I was only too happy to oblige. I packed the boys, the bug spray and a large basket and headed out to gather our very own stash of Saskatoon's.
Oh the possibilities for a large basket of Saskatoon's!
What is a Saskatoon Berry?
Saskatoon berries look much like blueberries, though they are more closely related to the apple family. Many would describe the taste of saskatoon as having a sweet, nutty almond flavor. They are also high in fiber, protein and antioxidants. (Taken from the Saskatoon Berry Institute)
Harry decided to try and make wine and crushed just a few berries. It took quite a bit of washing to get that off but the boys had fun and we picked so many berries.
Super-Fine Cake Flour is unbleached, unbromated, finely-ground flour made from low-protein wheat, resulting in baked goods with a wonderfully light texture and delicate crumb.
I really do have about a million Saskatoon berry ideas floating around in my head right now but I decided to start with a spot of baking and let the kids make some muffins.
SASKATOON BERRY & LEMON DRIZZLE MUFFINS
WHAT YOU NEED
255g Bob's Red Mill Super-Fine Cake Flour (You can use All purpose flour but the muffins will not be as light)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
100g sugar
1 egg
240 ml milk
90ml canola oil (or other flavorless oil)
Zest of 1 un-waxed lemon
150g frozen Saskatoon berries (If you don't have any Saskatoon's you can use frozen blueberries instead)
For the Drizzle:
100g sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
WHAT YOU DO
Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C
In a large bowl place the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder & sugar) and aerate everything by mixing with a whisk. (This means you never have to sieve flour for baking!)
In a large jug mix the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil and lemon zest) and whisk together.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and lazily fold everything together. Lumpy batter is what we want here as the more you work the mix the heavier the muffins will be.
Add the frozen berries and fold in. Adding frozen berries means that they will hold their shape better when baked and not explode into the bake.
Using an ice cream scoop place 1 scoop in each hole of a 12 hole muffin tray filled with muffin cases. Bake for 20 minutes till the tops are golden.
While the muffins are baking mix together the sugar and juice for the drizzle topping.
Remove the muffins from the oven and pour over a tablespoon of the drizzle over each muffin. Allow to cool (if you can resist!)
For more information on Saskatoon Berries check out the Saskatoon Berry Institute: click here
I was sent some Bob's Red Mill Flour to test out for the blog. I did not get paid to say nice things. Opinions, recipes and photos are my own and no children were harmed in the making of this post, just stained a little.
