Red, White & Blue Ricotta Cake

I found this on a YouTube video, in metric measures. It incorporates much of what I like in baked goods: not too sweet, fruit added -- in this case, cranberry and blueberry, an uncommon combo -- and lemon zest. I suspected the large amount of ricotta plus the yogurt or sour cream would give it the taste of a Danish, and yum. I was right!

Bake one larger, flatter cake in a spring form, and one smaller. A bundt pan would be fine, too. The picture is the mini-cake I baked for Eyal and Nadav. When I come to take care of Noa, I make sure there's a treat for the boys when they get home from school. You can't see the blueberries, which are the lower layer.

2 eggs

1/2 c sugar

Lemon zest to taste

1/2 c natural yogurt or sour cream

1/3 c neutral oil

1 1/2 c flour (can be half whole wheat)

1/2 t. salt

Scant T baking powder - seems like a lot, but it came out fine

1//4 c. cranberries, currants, or raspberries

 

Topping: 

1 c. ricotta - 8 oz

1 t. vanilla 

1/4 c sugar 

1 egg

1 T coconut

1/2 c blueberries, dusted with flour or cornstarch

Optional- Powdered sugar when you serve it.

 

350 / 35 min.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, and lemon zest. 

Add and whisk the yogurt, oil, flour(s) and baking powder.

Pour it in the greased baking pans, and drop the red berries on top. No need to mix, as they sink.

Mix the topping ingredients, except the blueberries. Place dollops of the ricotta mixture on the surface. Add the blueberries across the top.

Bake about 30-40 minutes until golden brown and the ricotta topping is solid. Dust with powdered sugar when you serve it.

This is a nice breakfast cake. Not very desserty.

 

Eyal particularly loves this cake. He inhales it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l8IiRxkr8Y

Persimmon Picking & Pulping + Persimmon Bread

Micah spotted persimmon trees on the trail to the Gesher Tsar Meod, and in 2023 Jo, Micah, and I picked a bunch. Then he found an even bigger tree and I went with Jennifer Paget and we picked a half a pot full.

In 2025, on a day Micah spent doing chores and exploring in fall, he counted 17 persimmon-bearing trees along the trails! And, he brought home a huge collection, and learned that they continue to ripen, called climacteric fruits.

Today, I stopped by Fredi Cooper's house, which she is moving out of shortly, and she gave me a beautiful Nordic Ware loaf pan, with a pumpkin vine pattern. It would be perfect for baking a persimmon bread! Can't wait to try it.

in 2023, I purchased a vintage Foley Food Mill on Ebay and it worked wonderfully, though it's slow. Eventually you collect pulp, which you can eat as a kind of cross between jam and sauce. It's a beautiful color. The dark flecks in it are completely edible.

We baked three loaves with this recipe. It's dark and moist. Nice with cream cheese. You can use pumpkin pie spice in lieu of the cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves.

This recipe is from Feast Magazine, doubled.

2 1/2 c (175g) flour (1/2 each whole wheat and white is fine)
1 t baking soda
1 t  salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 t ground cloves
1 1/3 cup  sugar
4 eggs
2 t vanilla 
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 c (260g) persimmon pulp

Preheat oven to 350˚F and spray pans. 

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a medium bowl; set aside. 

In a larger bowl, beat sugar, eggs and vanilla together until combined and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. With mixer running, stream in melted butter; continue to beat until incorporated, scraping sides of bowl down with a spatula as needed. Fold in persimmon pulp and mix until incorporated. 

Fold flour mixture into butter mixture just until combined, then fold in persimmon pulp until incorporated and no streaks remain. Divide between your pans.

Bake on middle rack of oven for 45 to 50 minutes, rotating pan after 20 minutes of baking. Bread is done when a wooden skewer comes out clean or with a few crumbs. Set on wire rack to cool completely.

In 2025, I used Fredi's loaf pan and two pumpkin layers. Nordic Ware calls it the Great Pumpkin pan. They came out of the pan very easily. So pretty.

Main trick is using a lot of Bakers Joy spray, which is flour and oil already combined.

 

Claudia Roden's Yogurt Cake

A 7" cake. It puffs and settles.

Here is Claudia Roden's Yogurt Cake. It's the same idea except adding yogurt gives it more heft. Eyal and Nadav love it! They call it yogurt muffins, for mysterious reasons. Note it has flour. Probably you could sub almond flour if you wanted to do this on Pesach, or make it gluten free. It's much lighter than cheese cake, but similar.

4 large eggs, separated, at room temperature - put the yolks in the larger bowl

½ cup granulated sugar
3 T [try doubling this for a denser cake] all-purpose flour (can be whole wheat)
1 ⅔ cups whole-milk Greek yogurt, or strain regular yogurt in a coffee filter for an hour or two.
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Optional: 1/2 c blueberries
Pinch of salt (optional), cinnamon to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8- or 9-inch springform pan, or two smaller (A 7" and 5" works well).

• Using an electric hand mixer, beat egg whites until they're stiff peaks
• Using the same mixer, combine yolks and sugar (no need to wash beaters after the egg white). Beat on medium-high until the mixture is very pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. 
• Mix in flour, yogurt, lemon zest and juice, and salt until fully incorporated.
• Gently fold half of the egg whites into the yolk-yogurt mixture until only a few streaks remain. 
• Fold in the remaining whites, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl, until the batter is evenly mixed, light and smooth.
• If you add blueberries, add a little flower to coat them. Take about 2/3 of the blueberries and mix in the batter. Save the rest for the top.
• Scrape the batter into prepared pan(s) and smooth into an even layer. Set the balance of the berries on top of the cake/s. These will not sink.
• Bake until the top is speckled with golden brown and puffed, 35 to 55 minutes. ( This burns if you don't watch it! You can cover with tin foil if it's browning too fast.
• Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cake cool before cutting. Serve warm or cold.

Basic Wholewheat Pancake with or without Banana

This is from Favorite Recipes from Quilters, contributed by two different cooks--Emma Troyer of Partridge, KS and Cathy Mazur of Williams Lake, BC.

It is easy and, for wholewheat pancakes, very light and high. I added the lemon zest. It has the advantage of only requiring one bowl. First you mix the dry ingredients, and then you add the wet directly into the dry.

You can add fresh berries; add them whole when you flip them in the loose batter on the second side.

1 c. wholewheat flour (a mixture of flours is fine)
1 T sugar
1 t. baking powder (push through a sieve)
1/2 t. baking soda (push through a sieve)
1/2 t salt
1 egg
1 c. buttermilk (regular milk is fine, if you don't have any)

optional: one mashed ripe banana
2 T melted butter
grated lemon zest to taste
cinnamon to taste

In medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 

Add egg, buttermilk, melted butter, and lemon zest. Whisk.

In hot, oiled skillet or grill, drop about 1/4 c of batter per pancake. Flip. On the induction burner, you can turn off the burner for the second side and the pancakes will cook fine and be less likely to burn.

Cinnamon Star Coffee Cake/Challah (or Pesto Star)

This is a King Arthur recipe - It's a lot of steps but fun. I baked one with Shula and Amira for our New Years Eve 2022/Shabbat Dinner. Obviously dairy. In this case the filling ran a bit, so a better seal matters. There are lots of videos to review the cut/twist steps.

The dough would be easy to double. It's such an impressive bread.

To do a six-pointed star, assumedly you can cut each quarter into thirds, and have six points instead of eight.

Dough
2 c (240g) Flour
1/2 cup (46g) dried potato flakes
1/4 cup (28g) nonfat dry milk powder
3/4 cup + 2 to 4 tablespoons (198g to 227g) lukewarm water, enough to make a soft, smooth dough
4 T (57g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract (omit if you're baking a savory star, like with pesto)
2 t instant yeast
2 T (25g) granulated sugar (cut to 1 T. for Savory Star)
1 t (6g) salt

Filling
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 c (99g) granulated sugar
1 T cinnamon

    or

Pesto (1/2 cup)

Combine all of the dough ingredients and mix and knead — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a soft, smooth dough. It is a rich dough and doesn't need a lot of working. Starting with a mixer and finishing by hand, in the bowl, seems to work fine.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 60 minutes, until it's nearly doubled in bulk.

To shape the loaf: Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, cover the balls, and allow them to rest for 15 minutes.

On a lightly greased or floured work surface, roll one piece of dough into a 10" circle. Place the circle on a piece of parchment, brush a thin coat of beaten egg on the surface, then evenly sprinkle with 1/3 of the cinnamon sugar (or pesto), leaving 1/4" of bare dough around the perimeter.

Roll out a second circle the same size as the first, and place it on top of the filling-covered circle. Repeat the layering process — egg, cinnamon sugar, dough circle — leaving the top circle bare. [Pinch the perimeter so the filling doesn't burst out as much.]

Place a 2 1/2" to 3" round cutter in the center of the dough circle as a guide. With a sharp knife, cut the circle into 16 equal strips, from the cutter to the edge, through all the layers.

Using two hands, pick up two adjacent strips, pull up & out and twist them away from each other twice so that the top side is facing up again. Repeat with the remaining strips of dough so that you end up with eight pairs of strips.

Pinch the pairs of strips together to create a star-like shape with eight points.

Transfer the star on the parchment to a baking sheet. Cover the star and let it rise until it becomes noticeably puffy, about 45 minutes.


While the star is rising, preheat the oven to 400°F.


Brush the star with a thin coat of the beaten egg. Bake it for 12 to 15 minutes, until it's nicely golden with dark brown cinnamon streaks; the center should register 200°F on a digital thermometer.


Remove the loaf from the oven and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes before serving. Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.

Irish Soda Bread / Bundt

This is 2 c. of flour, in a cast iron pan

This recipe is from a book I picked up from a Little Free Library, The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook by Sharon Kramis. I have modified it for a 10" skillet, using 2 cups of flour.

1 egg

1 c. buttermilk

2 c mixed flour (can include wheat germ, flax seed, etc)

1/2 t. baking soda 

1 t  baking powder 

4 oz butter, softened 

1/2 c raisins 

9/7, 2022 - New Yonim at ECP

1/4 c sugar

Pinch salt

Heat oven at 350.

Olive oil or butter a 10" cast iron skillet. 

In large bowl, mix flours, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, currants, and salt. To break up any lumps, I now use a small sieve instead of a sifter. Add soft butter and work it in.

In a smaller bowl, whisk eggs and buttermilk. Make a well in the flour, adding the butter (cut it into small pieces in winter when room temperature butter is colder) and the buttermilk/egg. Stir with a spoon until it comes together, incorporating the flour from the periphery.

Knead right in the bowl (really not much different than stirring) until it's a shaggy dough that holds together. It's quite sticky.

Place the dough in the skillet and spread into the pan. Score a large X, going the full depth, and separating the sections if possible. (This allows the baking to reach the center.) Take a knife and tap each quadrant to let the fairies out. (I saw that on YouTube!)

Bake about 32-35 minutes, covering with tin foil if it browns too quickly (the norm if you bake in the Breville). Test with a toothpick. 

Grandmother Kramis's Irish Soda Bread (3 cup recipe) from the cookbook

Grease/Flour a bundt pan (baker's spray) - my adaptation

1½ c. regular flour
1½ c. whole wheat flour (my change to the recipe) - a small portion can be wheat germ and flax seed
¾ t. baking soda
1½ t. baking powder
⅜ c. sugar (you could decrease this)
⅜ c. currants or ¾ c. raisins
Pinch salt
6 oz unsalted butter, melted 
2 eggs
1½ c. buttermilk (powdered works OK)

In large bowl, mix flours, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, currants, and salt. To break up any lumps, I now use a small sieve instead of a sifter.

In a smaller bowl, whisk eggs and buttermilk. Make a well in the flour, adding the butter and the buttermilk/egg. Stir with a spoon until it comes together, incorporating the flour from the periphery.

Knead right in the bowl (really not much different than stirring) until it's a shaggy dough that holds together. It's quite sticky.

Place the dough in the bundt pan. 

Bake about 32-35 minutes, covering with tin foil if it browns too quickly Test with a toothpick. 

Yum!

Here is an old version from the NYTimes that was posted on the Coronobake FB Group. It has no sugar or butter but more raisins:

Diane Casteel

2 C all purpose flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1 t caraway seeds

1/2 C raisins

1 C buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together. Add the rest. Knead on floured board for 5 min [or in the bowl]. Shape into rounded loaf. Cut an "X" in the top of the loaf, half an inch deep. Place on greased baking sheet. Preheat oven to 375°. After placing baking sheet with loaf in the oven, turn the oven down to 350°. Bake 45-50 minutes. Enjoy!

 

Pasta Grannies Lemon Pudding

 I love watching Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel produced by a British food ethnographer, Vicky Bennison, who interviews elder cooks all over Italy to learn their regional specialties.

I never make anything from their brief vignettes but this lemon pudding really spoke to me, and it's delicious. Low sugar - basically eggs and lemon. Double it for this quartet of pictures - baked for Passover 2022 in Chestertown.

3 eggs, separated in bowls you can beat in 

2 to 3 T sugar

1 lemon

option: add 1/2 cup of berries. I tried blueberries and it worked.

Boil the lemon until it is soft, and puree in a food processor. Let it cool. (Since you mix it with the egg yolks, if it's hot it will cook the yolks.)

Spray an 8" springform or souffle pan. The grannies also sugar the pan.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar, and mix in the puréed lemon.

Beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the yolks until the batter is uniform in color. Add berries if you like.

Bake at around 365 for a half hour or so in the Breville. Cover with foil if the top browns too fast.

It puffs up and deflates, making a nice concave holder for fresh berries. The nonnas serve it with whipped cream. Not my thing.

(The boiled citrus is like the clementine cake, but this is very light, hence more like a pudding.)

This would be fun to make on Pesach - refreshing, not too hard, and even parve/ gluten free.

Check out Claudia Roden's yogurt cake, which is the same basic idea with the addition of, you guessed it, yogurt. You can also add blueberries.

=======================

Jane Brody Bran Pretzel Rolls

I baked these when you were little. They aren't exactly no-knead, but you knead the dough in the bowl so they're a bit easier than many yeast doughs.

They have both whole-grain cereal and whole wheat, making them very fiber rich.

Jane Brody is still, in 2021, at age 80 a NYTimes Science/Healthy columnist, so she has been a guide my whole adult life. In the 80s she had a PBS cooking show I watched occasionally, and I have two of her cookbooks. They aren't fancy, but the recipes are good and things you'd really make, with healthy ingredients.

These are prettier with an egg wash glaze and sesame seeds. I baked them during the 2020 CoronaQuarantine, when I was craving yeasty rolls.

I just baked some for Eyal and Nadav's first days at the ECP.
They are satisfying and just a little sweet - what I enjoy for breakfast.

Four addenda:

1) No need to refrigerate the dough. Today, with a room temperature of 66 or so, I rolled the pretzels out after the first rise with room temperature dough, much easier. I shaped them and left the tins out for about 3-4 hours at room temperature and they were fine. Eyal, Nadav and I egg-washed and sprinkled them.

2) If you do refrigerate the dough, let it come to room temperature before rolling out. The cold dough is very hard to work with.

Roll it into an oblong, and cut it into 24 long lengths. This saves a lot of time!

3) To make the pretzel shape, curve 12" strands and curve them, crossing each other, and attach. Take the two endsand press both end into the edge. A fancier version: twist before attaching.

The thinner and longer you roll the dough, the more defined the pretzel shape is.

4) Egg wash before the rise. Rewash and sprinkle with sesame seeds for a prettier roll.

After the 2 hour rising. 

Jane Brody's Best Bran Muffins

Jane Brody's cookbook was my favorite for many years. I make these once or twice a year. It's a double batch. Lately I have been baking half in muffin tins and the other half* in a not quite quarter-sheet that fits in the Breville. Way easier - instead of muffins, squares.

3 C shredded *bran cereal (e.g. All-Bran, 100% Bran, etc.)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 C raisins
1 C boiling water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 C buttermilk
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
4 t sugar
2 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a large bowl, combine the cereal, oil, and raisins, and pour the boiling water over them. Set the mixture aside to cool slightly.

2. In a small bowl, combine the eggs, buttermilk, and molasses. Add this to the partly cooled cereal mixture. 

3. In another small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the cereal mixture, stirring just enough to moisten the dry ingredients. Cover the batter with plastic wrap, wax paper, or a damp towel, and let it stand for at least 15 minutes, preferably for 1 hour. 

4. Preheat the oven to 400. Grease *24 muffin portions, and divide the batter among them filling each cup about three-fourths full. 

Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the muffins from the oven, and, when they are slightly cooled, turn them in the tins and tip them to cool.

Jane Brody's *All Bran crust for blueberry pie uses the same ingredient.

Cranberry (or Blueberry) Cornbread

This is a new favorite! I've lost track of where I found it. It's always good to have buttermilk recipes, since it's a handy ingredient to have but hard to use up.

Baking it in a flat sheet pan that fits the Breville makes for a very quick bake and a lot of crust.

In muffin tins, it makes 18. I used silicon muffin pans, and the muffins don't look quite the same -- the tops don't round, and they don't brown quite the same, but they're cute!

1 stick butter, softened (7 T. works, but 8 is yummier)
1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. cornmeal
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 to 1.5 c. buttermilk (I just baked it and accidentally used just 1 c. and it was fine)
1 c. cranberries, halved.  This is easiest to do with a small knife.

• In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 
• Add eggs; mix well. 
• Combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt
• Alternately add with the buttermilk. 
• Fold in cranberries.
• Transfer to a greased small rectangular pan. Bake at 375° until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, ~ 20 minutes in the Breville. 

Another version: 12 oz of blueberries (one and half pints) and some grated lemon zest. It's denser than blueberries muffins, very satisfying.

Baked in the round Lodge cast iron.

Oatmeal Scones

Frosted with icing and grated lemon zest

These have great flavor and texture. Makes about 2 dozen small scones.

Found the recipe online but it's so modified, it isn't the same recipe by now.






Preheat oven to 375°

1 ¾ c. flour (one cup white, ¾ whole wheat is a good mix)

1 ½ t baking powder

¾ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

⅓ c. sugar
-------------------------------------------------
¾ c. butter (1.5 sticks), cold, cut into bits

1⅓ c. old fashioned oats

½ c. currants, dried cranberries, chopped prunes or raisins

½ c. buttermilk or regular milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

confectioners sugar + water drops


Combine first 5 ingredients by hand in a medium-large bowl.

Add butter and mix by hand until it resembles coarse meal.

Add oats, currants, buttermilk, and egg until dough just sticks together. Knead in the bowl until it holds together. Doesn't take long but your hands get very messy!

Flatten into a large circle on a smooth surface like a flexible mat.

Cut into sixths. Then cut each sixth into 4 triangles. Try to make them approximately the same size.

Arrange on a sprayed cookie tin. They will fit on one sheet. They don't rise or spread much. Bake about 18 minutes or until lightly browned. (It's hard to see since the dough is already brown.)

When they're cool, you can ice them. In a small bowl, pour confectioners sugar. Add a scant amount of water and keep eye dropping it in until you can spread it. If you put in too much water it is too thin to spread.

Ima-Modified Dorie Greenspan's Raisin Scones

Though Dorie Greenspan sounds like someone I might have met at Herzl Camp, she is a well-known food writer.  These scones were in Parade Magazine, not a fancy venue.  They are a bit more work than muffins, but have a wonderful texture.  A real treat.  I just made them with blueberries and it worked really well.  Carnberry/walnut is awesome!  Craisins would be beautiful, too.

1 large egg
½ cup milk (skim is fine)
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1 cup whole wheat flour (this can be 1/4 oatmeal, adding a nice texture)
2 ½  T sugar
1 T baking powder
½  t salt - optional
6 Tbsp cold butter, cut into bits or grated in the big side of a box grater (hold onto the wrapper)
¾ cup raisins, blueberries or chopped cranberries.  
optional: handful of chopped nuts, your choice
optional: confectioners' sugar for icing


1 Cut the butter into bits as soon as you take it out of the refrigerator, with a fork, a knife, or a box grater.  You can use the butter wrapper to cut on.
Spray a cookie tin with oil.  You can also use the butter wrapper.
2  Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Whisk the egg and milk together in one bowl and mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt in another. 
3 Drop the butter into the flour mixture and, using your fingers, cut and rub until the mixture is pebbly, squeezing the butter bits into smaller pieces. Pour in the milk and egg. Mix with a spatula until the dough is evenly moist, or just use your hands. Add the raisins or other fruits and give the very sticky dough a few more stirs/kneads.  
4 Press into a long rectangle on a cutting board. Cut into triangles. 
Or you can divide the dough into five balls. An easy way to do this is to roll the dough into a log and cut it in five slices.  On a roll-out mat, flatten each slice into a disc, and cut in quarters, making 20 mini-scones. 
Try to cover fully exposed raisins or blueberries with dough so they don't burn.
These don't spread much so they can be fairly close.  
5 Bake for 20 minutes, or until the scones are golden brown. Cool for a few minutes. 
6 Optional, ice them.  Take about 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar.  Add water by drops.  Seriously.  It needs to be very thick or it spreads all over.  You can dip the scones, when cooled, in the icing, or spread it with a knife or small spatula.

*Makes 12. Per scone: 170 calories, 26g carbs, 3g protein, 7g fat, and 35mg cholesterol.
15 scones from the batter @ 136 calories
20 scones from the batter ("four bites") @ 100 calories.

Grandma Fritzie's Blueberry Muffins

Shula really loves blueberry muffins; at 22 months,
she calls them Mushrooms.

These are the best blueberry muffins I know, and they're easy.

From mid-June to late-July when the Jersey berries are plentiful, I make these quite a few times. [Seems like the seasons is extending a bit each year.]

Blueberries, milk, and part whole wheat: these are very nutritious, as well as a nice tender texture. I keep modifying it. Newest twist: lemon zest.

The basic recipe makes a dozen regular size or 20-24 mini-muffins. If you double it, you can make 36 slightly less-mini-muffins. If the portioning doesn't work out and you have extra batter, you can put the leftover batter in a greased mini-loaf pan and bake it along with your muffins.

If you let go of their muffin identity: I now bake them in the Breville in a quarter sheet pan for about 17 minutes. I cut the sheet into 16 with a pizza slicer. Blueberry Muffin Squares?

Heat oven to 400 degrees

Spray your muffin tins - try to just hit the muffin indents, since the rest of the spray will burn. I experimented and you really don't need to spray silicone tins, unless you've recently washed them with a baking powder paste that removes the accumulated oil on their surface.

3/4 c. whole wheat flour

3/4 c. regular flour

3/4 c. sugar

1/2 t. salt

1 T baking powder (that's right, it's a lot!)

1/2 c. skim milk (or higher fat milk if that's what you drink, or buttermilk)
1 egg

1/4 c. melted butter

1 c. blueberries (normal containers are a pint, so a half container) 

optional but yummy: lemon zest to taste

You'll need two bowls.

In the smaller bowl, add and mix the dry ingredients.

In the larger bowl, beat the egg and add the milk. (and zest)

Quickly add the dry ingredients to the wet - mix fast. Mixture will be lumpy, and with all that baking powder, it will begin to sponge up a little.

Add the melted butter and berries and stir as best you can, since it's quite thick.

Abba and Shula whisking the liquids - Mama was in Aspen

Using a soup spoon, scoop the batter into [easy version] a greased 1/4 sheet pan or [more effort required!] each muffin compartment (or whatever you call them.) If you spray the spoon with Pam, it helps the batter to slide off the spoon. If you make regular-sized muffins, you can use an ice cream scoop.
If there are a lot of berries sitting on top of the batter, they will explode and make a mess in the pan, so it's a good idea to try to cover them with some batter. Don't worry about trying to make them all exactly the same, but do make them reasonably similar in size so they bake at the same rate.

Bake about 15-18 minutes, until they are smelling wonderful and they are nicely browned. 

Let them cool for a few minutes. I am too lazy to use cooling racks, so I just twist them out of the tins and upend them to cool the rest of the way.

Soak the tins for a few minutes, but not overnight - they will rust. [Or get silicone tins].

These freeze really well. 

In 2024, the blackberries Micah planted started producing prodigiously!

This is a quart. To make a double batch of muffins, quarter them - they are so big. This is a generous amount for 24 muffins. Sprinkle with a little extra sugar, as they are quite tart. They turn crimson! 

They are really good - but of course they have seeds.

These Chestertown wineberries disintegrate when baked....