Hello lovelies! I hope that you are all well and enjoying the weekend.
Here in the Welsh hills, it is blustery and rainy with the occasional hail shower. We had wanted to visit Bodant Garden in Conwy today but I think that given the conditions, we may wait to visit in May.
Instead, I have spend the morning baking some lovely Blueberry-Lemon Buttermilk Muffins. The mixture yielded 12 muffins plus enough for a loaf, or you could do 24 muffins.
Make my Blueberry-Lemon Buttermilk Muffins
Here is my recipe if you would like to give them a try – they certainly are delicious!
Prep Time
10 minutes
bake Time
20-24 minutes
makes
24
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 cups fresh blueberries
GLAZE
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
Steps
1
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease two muffin pans or line with paper baking cups.
2
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb powder, and salt. Set aside.
3
In a medium mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla and combine until smooth. Beat in the flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating the two, using about one-third of each for each addition. The mixture should be smooth and creamy. Fold in the blueberries, and mix until they are evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour the batter into the muffin tins, filling each up about half-way.
4
Bake until the muffin tops are golden, 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes.
5
Make the Glaze: Stir the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest until smooth. Brush the glaze over the muffin tops while the muffins are still warm.
Down the Spring Garden Path…
This is our first spring in our new home and it is a joy to watch the garden awakening this spring.
The garden is surrounded by a variety of trees, shrubs and hedges and most of them are in various stages of blossoming. It is so lovely to see colour creeping in to the far reaches of the garden.
While we have had clear blue skies on occasion, April is renowned for its turbulent nature, so to see these pops of colour helps us to remember that better days on most certainly on the way!
In the greenhouse, I have had mixed luck with my seeds. The problem is that I planted a lot of seeds who’s sell by date had come and gone. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away, they had to be given the chance.
I have cosmos, lupins, poppies, rudbeckia, sweetpeas and sunflowers coming up. I bought some fresh seeds just this week so I will get those sown this weekend.
My YouTube Channel
I wanted to let you know about the trials and developments with my YouTube channel.
I spent hours and hours recording and editing my launch episode only to find that the program I used draws the various clips from a URL and does not store the content on its platform.
This is completely useless because it means that I need to keep the files on my own hard drive on cloud storage which takes up an immense amount of room. If the URL’s are deleted, your uploaded video is destroyed.
So, back to the drawing board. I think I am just going to record again, not worry too much about making it a professionally edited production, and hope that people are happy to connect with me in a simple, unedited manner. Something is better than nothing right?
You will note that I managed to figure out how to get the comments form visible on this new blog home – it’s only taken me about 7 months! So if anyone has recommendations on editing software, I would love to hear from you!
Saturday Afternoon Reading
I picked up The Simple Things magazine yesterday so I am enjoying paging through April’s copy this rainy afternoon.
I am also enjoying this little spring display that I put together for the coffee table in the conservatory. We got this gorgeous Easter card from a dear friend and I love it so much that I’m going to keep it for future spring displays. The little house was a gift from my daughter’s recent visit to Copenhagen and I picked a few of the blooming dandelion flowers from my garden.
I’ve shared before how my husband can’t stand them and how much I love them – they are a hallmark of spring! Fortunately, all the dandelions in our garden appear to be containing themselves to the far reaches of the garden and in the wild boarders, so in my view, they have every right to be there.
Anhyoo lovelies, that’s about it from me this weekend. I hope that whatever you are doing you are enjoying a slower pace and will find some time this weekend to nurture your creativity and home.
