Birthday Brunch Festivities and my standby favorite blueberry muffin recipe

A few weeks ago, I officially entered the realm of "late twenties" and promptly heard my biological clock ticking like a time bomb.

To herald the next decade of worrying about when to have kids before my risk of having mutant babies becomes too significant for safety, I decided to throw a scrumptious brunch and declare, "To heck with my slowing metabolism and biological clock! I am going to STUFF MY FACE." And I invited my friends to join me.

I've been trying very hard to keep the sweet stuff to a healthy minimum. So here are these gorgeous roasted Hasselback potatoes stuffed with lovely slivers of garlic.

And this yummy onion, mushroom and cheese frittata that I threw together on a whim and prayed would turn out okay! (It did!)

And a loaf of sundried tomato and Parmesan cheese bread, made with the no-knead dough of the week! Soooo good. Moist, flavorful, savory!

But of course it wouldn't be a PARTY unless there were some sweets! Front and center were these brioche cinnamon rolls made with no-knead brioche dough, lots of cinnamon, and a NUTELLA CREAM CHEESE FROSTING. Oh yes I did.

*drool*

And last but not least were these blueberry muffins, the recipe of which I have been making since my early baking days in college. This recipe is an Allrecipes.com classic (over 12,000 reviews now!) entitled "Best of the best blueberry muffins." My only change to the recipe is that I use only 3/4 cup of white sugar instead of 1 & 1/4 cup in the original recipe. They are tender, moist, not-too-sweet, and with a clean, bright flavor that I think comes from the white sugar and little bit of buttermilk. No nuts, no streusel--unadulterated. Frozen or fresh berries are fine, but either way, it's just one of the best, simplest incarnations of a blueberry muffin you can find.