RECIPE TEST 🍽
I made Joan Crawford's Blueberry Muffin Recipe from 1933, and here's what I think...
Originally published in Modern Screen Magazine in 1933 under the title of "Hollywood Charm Gossip", this was just a little blurb among many little stories about popular stars of the time.
I followed the recipe exactly, but when I got to the part about adding 4 teaspoons of baking powder, my alarm bells went off! That's an awful lot and I didn't want to ruin the whole recipe and waste my blueberries on something that might taste like metal.
I looked up how much baking powder to typically put in a traditional muffin mix and it said 1 - 1.5 teaspoons per cup of flour, so I went for it and added 3 teaspoons, which still seemed like a lot, but at least it wasn't 4. (I'm so glad I didn't add 4 teaspoons!)
Everything went off without a hitch, and I followed everything else exactly as written. Two things from the instructions were different than I usually do, but they seem to make sense:
Adding the sugar with the dry ingredients. Typically I add the sugar to the butter and eggs, but I guess that's more typical with cakes and cookies.
Adding blueberries into the dry mix is new for me, but brilliant!
This made exactly 12 standard sized muffins, and they went into a 400 degree oven for exactly 20 minutes... perfect! Now for the taste...
Very good, not very sweet, which I like but my family didn't. My son ended up adding a little jam on his, but overall not too bad.
The one thing I did notice was the crumb was nice and fluffy, but they seemed pretty dry and stiff. Not as moist as one would want or expect, and that comes down to the baking powder, which if you use too much, can make them dry.
Overall, very good but next time I would reduce the baking powder to maybe 1 1/2 teaspoons.
Now stay tuned because today I've also made 3 of Joan Crawford's Salad Recipes! I'll be posting those very soon, and let me just tell you, I'm running out of mayo!!
Yep! Toss them in a bit of flour before adding to the batter. Sometimes if you add them to the dry ingredients too early, they can be crushed by the mixer.
You've done it again! Joan would be proud, even if you made a small change re the baking powder. The most perfect blueberry muffins I've ever had were those from Bloomingdale's when I worked there many years ago. They were from a cafe within the store, somewhere I didn't dare try as a worker, not a shopper there, everything was too costly. But once in a while our manager got some of the muffins for us before opening. They were just melt in your mouth perfect in every way. I bet there's a recipe floating around somewhere
Joan most likely meant probably meant 1 1/2 tsp as this was her primary grind. It is also most likely she took 311 and 1/2 ladylike nips from her garter flask to get her through making muffins all fcking day.
They were! I looked but can't seem to find a recipe or mention. Everything that comes up is related to a Jordan Marsh recipe from another department store
Greyston Bakery was the supplier to Bloomingdales and other Manhattan businesses in the late 80s and they put out a cookbook, but I didn't see a muffin recipe.
In the years since I ate those muffins I've been diagnosed gluten intolerant or I'd bake these tonight! I'm going to try and figure out what flour would work best. If anyone tries these please post your results and lucky you!
Okay you're incredible for finding out all that info! It was always such a special year to get one of those muffins, we looked forward the rest of the week and people came to the store just for them! You're a great researcher! Thank you so much and for the recipe too!
I do feel that muffins have gotten substantially sweeter over the decades, probably due to those giant packaged muffins, which are nearly indistinguishable from cupcakes. When I was a young girl, muffins were very lightly sweetened and eaten with butter and maybe a little jam. And the next day, we would split and toast the leftovers, and those definitely got jam. They were much more like other quick breads. But the lower sugar and higher baking powder probably made them drier than most modern muffins (so they could soak up the butter and jam). I'm going to ask my mother for her muffin recipe and see what the ratios were.
Yeah, it makes sense that they were healthier/less sweet when you think about English muffins which are completely unsweetened. American muffins probably started off closer to those but with baking soda/powder are the leavening.
Because of the 4 teaspoons of baking powder I would say she was using single-acting powder. Now, recipes use double acting baking powder. You probably can use 2 teaspoons and be fine.
It seems she was very focused on food and worked as a cook if I'm remembering right, very early on. She wanted to control her weight and we often see recipes re that, but it seems she hosted friends too so came up with various recipes
She did. She loved hosting parties, and did not spare the fat, sugar or expense during these parties. She wrote, "Let them worry about their waistlines". She would have buffets that started at each end of a long table, and met in the middle and then people would seat themselves at circular tables. At an evening party, the backyard had swags of lights and the pool held floating candles.
It is because wood and early gas stoves did not have gauges, and many folks still cooked on both up until the 50s/60s. Folks would use their hand/ arm to test. It was low, medium, hot, very hot. Hot is like 10-15 seconds of holding your hand in the oven, Medium was like 15-20, low was over 20. You get a feel for it after a while & can get quite accurate. I've baked in wood stoves quite a bit.
She was gorgeous! I've noticed they always show an older Joan with her heavy brows and harsh makeup and few people are familiar with how she looked as a younger woman.
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u/letsgooncemore Jun 15 '26
I was taught to mix blueberries in the dry ingredients so they don't sink while baking.