perfect blueberry muffins
When blueberries first show up at the market, it feels like sacrilege to bake with them — ditto with raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. Mother Nature made them perfect! Why drown them in batter, wilt them with heat and then leave them out to dry? What brutes we’d be! But there’s a day in August — I think it might have been yesterday* — when something shifts. The high for the day is in the 60s, you run out to the market and what is this? Did you wish you’d brought your cardigan? How strange! And all of a sudden the prospect of a berry baked into something warm and cozy, that you might eat with your first hot coffee of the season, seems very right.
And it is around this time every year that I try to find the best blueberry muffin. I’ve made them with buttermilk and yogurt and cream cheese too, with streusel and dipped in butter and rolled in cinnamon-sugar; I’ve tucked them into corn muffins and bran muffins too, back to one I got from Cook’s Illustrated eons ago (introduced to me by the lovely Elise), but that’s different from the recipes in the two Cook’s Illustrated cookbooks that I own and also at least three of the five other blueberry muffin recipes on their site (the last two are hidden behind a pay wall put between people already paying and people paying more than people who are paying, not that I’m venting or anything, ahem). It has a high dome and a thick batter that’s really more of a dough (a classically brilliant technique of CI’s to keep berries from sinking) and every time, they’re as pretty as a picture.
I mean, I play with them too. I like them with yogurt but I like them even more with sour cream. I halve the recipe because 10 muffins is just the perfect amount to keep you from getting in too much trouble. I find it doesn’t much matter whether your berries are frozen or fresh, but I don’t care for defrosting them first as they just get so wet and slumpy. And although I made these in greased muffin cups, I forgot that I prefer them with paper liners because occasionally, a blueberry gets lost, stuck to the pan, and that’s just no way for a blueberry to go out.
* Or two days before that, when I started writing the post. Why does it take so long to update these days? You’ll have to speak to the boss.
NEW: Watch me make these muffins on YouTube!
Previously
One year ago: Cubed, Hacked Caprese
Two years ago: Dimply Plum Cake and Crisp Rosemary Flatbread
Three years ago: Smoke-Roasted Stuffed Bell Peppers
Four years ago: Punition Sandwiches and Moules à la Marinière
Perfect Blueberry Muffins
This began with an adaptation of an old Cook’s Illustrated blueberry muffin but with so many changes, it no longer resembles the original. I use yogurt instead of buttermilk, less sugar, I’ve adapted it to make it one-bowl and then in August 2016 it got the biggest overhaul yet after a month of blueberry muffin studies. From Stella Parks at Serious Eats, I came to agree that a full teaspoon of coarse sugar on top of each muffin sounds crazy but actually makes a delightfully crunchy lid. If the muffin underneath it isn’t too sweet, it doesn’t put it over the top at all — it’s just right. I also found her combination of coriander (I know!) and nutmeg crazy good and worth trying if you’re curious, even if I’m still defaulting to my lemon zest only here. From Blythe Danner, I realized you could put an inordinate amount of berries in each muffin and still have a very good muffin. I ended up doubling the berries in my go-to in the last batch and regret not-a-thing. (Should you be hesitant, just an increase from 3/4 cups to 1 1/4 is excellent but not over-the-top improvement.) I found it made 9 taller and more gorgeous muffins than it did of the 10 to 11 in the original recipe; just double it for a crowd.
- 5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter, cold is fine
- 1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
- Finely grated zest from 1/2 a lemon (previously: 1/2 teaspoon zest)
- 3/4 cup plain unsweetened yogurt or sour cream
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
- 1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups (215 to 255 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (no need to defrost) (previously: 3/4 cup, see note up top)
- 3 tablespoons turbinado (sugar in the raw) sugar
Heat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 9 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Melt butter in the bottom of a large bowl and whisk in sugar, zest, yogurt and egg until smooth. Whisk in baking powder, baking soda and salt until fully combined, then lightly fold in flour and berries. Batter will be very thick, like a cookie dough. Divide between prepared muffin cups and sprinkle each with 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar, which will seem over-the-top but I promise, will be the perfect crunchy lid at the end. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool in pan for 10 minutes then the rest of the way on a rack.
These, like most muffins, are best on the first day, we’ve found through extensive “research” that if you run them split open under a broiler on day two with a pat of salted butter, it’s so good that you’re going to forever hope for more blueberry muffin leftovers.
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