Since I'm just getting my baking groove back I was happy that this recipe was easy and straightforward. Not including baking time, I think all the work was done in less than 20 minutes. There was also very little mess to clean up which is always nice, and just 2 ingredients I had to buy that I didn't already have on hand. I normally bake the cupcakes on the weekends after I've worked in the morning. When the recipes and ingredients needed for them are low maintenance it helps motivate me to want to make them. Although this week I did watch the early football games (go Bills) and take a little nap before I started baking. Getting up at 3am and working a full day is tiring.
The first thing I did to prepare the ingredients was rinse the blackberries. They tell me all fresh fruit should be washed before used/eaten. I also cut some in half to make them smaller since some of them were quite large. The recipe also says you need 12 oz. of blackberries, but I probably could have gotten away with just 6. I had about half leftover. But, I suppose that could have been because some of the blackberries were extra large.
Once I was done prepping the blackberries I started to combine the dry ingredients before I realized that I should have started to melt the butter so it could cool. I stopped with the dry ingredients and melted the butter. While the butter was melting and then cooling I combined the rest of the ingredients. I completed a couple of kitchen tasks, like washing my dishes from lunch, while I waited for the melted butter to cool. When I started to become impatient, and couldn't wait any longer, I whisked together the wet ingredients, and then combined both the wet and dry ingredients together.
I used my quarter-cup measuring cup to pour the batter into the cupcake liners because that's what Martha told me to do. The liners ended up being filled about three-quarters full. I filled 12 cupcake liners and had a very small amount of batter left over. Such a small amount that I didn't deem it enough to save and make a second batch. I baked the cupcakes for 25 total minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time. In my opinion they turned out perfectly, just the right size and they tasted good as well. I loved how the berries looked in the cupcakes. The pop of color was really pretty. All in all, the first recipe back was a complete success. I was even able to take them to work and get rid of them so I wouldn't eat them. I'm not shedding for the wedding anymore, but that doesn't mean I should be packing on the pounds to get ready for winter either.
Now that I'm back from my honeymoon and just another married lady with no more weddings to plan, I promise to do my best to keep up with my pre-wedding normal weekly posting pace. I may even throw one or two real-life posts in the mix. Don't you want to know how the wedding went, and whether or not my dog still stinks after getting sprayed by a skunk this weekend? I thought so.
