Blueberry Muffins

Fortuna woke up early that morning and carefully crept out of bed without disturbing Brizo. Slowly, they left the room and made their way to the kitchen. Once there, they pulled out a recipe book and flipped through until they landed on a page titled “Blueberry Muffins”. They propped up the book on the counter and opened the fridge to collect the ingredients. Eggs, milk, vanilla extract, butter and blueberries were all set out when a soft knock came from the front door.

“The door is unlocked!” Fortuna called.

The front door creaked open and softly clicked shut a moment later. Fortuna listened to the footsteps approaching for a moment while they looked through the cupboard for ingredients. They stole a glance at the door when the sound stopped, spotting Polly peeking at the recipe open on the counter. Sugar, salt, baking powder, flour and sugar were set next to the other ingredients.

“Are you ready to learn some baking?” Fortuna asked, setting their paw on Polly’s shoulder.

“I’m always ready! I hope Brizo will enjoy them.”

“Oh, she will. This is her favorite muffin recipe. Now, are you ready to get started?” Polly nodded, so Fortuna turned to the oven to preheat it. Then, they grabbed a medium-sized bowl and put the butter and sugar into it.

“The first step is technically preheating the oven, but after that we have to cream the butter and sugar together. We’ll keep mixing this until it gets light and fluffy.”

Fortuna took out and plugged in a hand mixer, which they gave to Polly. They turned it on a low setting and watched as Polly slowly moved the mixer in circles around the bowl. After a minute or so, the mixture reached the right consistency and Fortuna turned the mixer off again.

“Next, we add the eggs and vanilla to this mixture. We add the eggs in one at a time and mix thoroughly before adding the next one. I’ll crack the eggs into the bowl, all you have to do is keep mixing like you were before.” Polly nodded and Fortuna added in the vanilla before cracking one egg into the bowl. Polly then turned the mixer back on the lowest setting and beat the egg into the batter. Once the egg was fully incorporated into the mixture, Fortuna cracked another egg for Polly to mix, repeating with all the necessary eggs. Once all the eggs were added, the mixer was turned back off.

“Okay. Now I’m going to mix all the other dry ingredients - that's flour, salt, and baking powder - into a bowl. We’ll sift those into the bowl a little at a time while also adding a little milk. It’ll alternate, so a little dry then a little wet and so on.”

Fortuna carefully measured out the dry ingredients into a small bowl, stumbling a little and creating a tiny puff of flour in the process. They glanced to the side at Polly, who was trying her hardest to hide a giggle. With a sigh and a smile, Fortuna turned back to their ingredients and measured the milk into a cup. After Polly turned the mixer back on, Fortuna gently added some of the dry ingredients to a sieve, slowly tapping it over the batter bowl to sift them in. After that little bit was sifted, they set the sieve down and added a splash of milk. The alternating continued until all the milk and dry ingredients were added to the batter and thoroughly mixed.

“Next, we have to add the blueberries to the batter. We’ll mix these in with a spoon so we don’t crush them. To add some flavor throughout, I’m going to crush a quarter of our blueberries to mix in. The rest of them will be covered in flour and gently folded in.”

“Why would we cover them in flour? Isn’t that going to make them taste funny?” Polly furrowed her brows and tipped her head to the side.

“Good question! The flour taste will cook off when we bake the muffins, so that won’t be an issue at all. By covering the blueberries in flour, we let them float in the batter more. Otherwise, they tend to sink to the bottom of the muffin instead of being spread throughout.”

“Oh, really? That's kind of cool actually! It's like we’re scientists!” Polly cheered and clapped, causing the bit of flour coating her paws to explode into the air.

Fortuna chuckled and moved the blueberries they needed to mash into a small bowl. They slid the bowl with the remaining blueberries over to Polly, who pulled the bag of flour closer to coat them with. Once all the blueberries were ready, they dumped them all into the batter bowl. Polly stirred the mixture gently while Fortuna got a muffin pan and liners out of the cupboards and set them up for the batter. Then, they took out two ice cream scoops.

“Here,” Fortuna handed one of the scoops to Polly, “I like using these to measure out the batter, it's consistent and easier to get the batter out than with a normal spoon.”

“That’s a good trick! So I just fill the scoop for each muffin, then?”

“Yep, nice and easy, like I said.”

The duo worked side by side to measure out the batter evenly among the dozen muffin tins. Fortuna checked them over, nodding to themself when they saw that they were even. They put on oven mitts and carefully slid the pan into the middle rack of the preheated oven.

“Now, we let them bake for about a half hour. I usually peek at them a few minutes before to make sure they don’t burn and stay nice and fluffy.” Fortuna said, twisting their timer to 25 minutes at the same time.

Half an hour later, the muffin tray was taken out of the oven and set on the counter to cool. Fortuna and Polly worked together to set up three place settings at the dining room table, with plates, napkins and glasses. Fresh orange juice and a jug of milk were set in the center so they could choose what to drink when breakfast was ready. Polly took out eggs and scallions to quickly make some scrambled eggs while Fortuna went back into the bedroom to wake up Brizo for breakfast.

“What’s all this? It smells fantastic in here.” Brizo said as she entered the kitchen.

“Surprise! We made breakfast. Blueberry muffins and scrambled eggs.” Polly cheered, turning off the stovetop and splitting the eggs evenly between the plates Fortuna handed her.

“You made breakfast for me? Wait a second… is that the blueberry muffins?”

“Obviously.” Fortuna chuckled. “Only the best for you, after all.”

“Yeah! Fortuna taught me how to make them, we wanted to do something nice for you.” Polly smiled brightly up at Brizo.

“Well then, let’s eat! Thank you for all this, it means a lot.” Brizo smiled, looking fondly between her companions. She loved her family.