What I Made Wednesday {Bakery-Style Blueberry Muffins}

It's only the second week of school and I'm already scrambling for breakfast ideas for the kiddo. I try to avoid the processed foods so readily available out there (but I'll admit I'm an Eggo Waffle fan). I discovered this blueberry muffin recipe between the pages of The Gourmet Cookbook. I didn't know what I was going to get in the end as there are no pictures, sacrilege for a cookbook as far as I'm concerned. I followed along and was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the oven door to discover beautiful looking blueberry muffins good enough to earn their own place in Panera's bakery case. You'll never by muffins in a press-sealed bag ever, ever again! And, paying $2 a muffin at some bakery will be history.

Milk, not pictured. Flowers not to be used in recipe.

What You'll Need
For the Batter
6-Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup milk
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups blueberries



For the Topping
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3-Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
3-1/2 Tablespoons sugar
Raw cane sugar, optional

Muffin tin (I was too lazy to get the 12-muffin tin from the basement and just used the 6 - making bigger muffins. I had extra batter so I plopped it into a ramekin.)

What You'll Do 

Preheat your over to 375 degrees F. Spray or hand grease the muffin tin. Melt the 6 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Be careful not to burn the butter.

Whisk the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Be sure the butter is cool enough so when you add the eggs, they don't begin to cook. Combine the wet and dry ingredients together and mix until a batter forms. The smell at this point: phenomenal.

If you've rinsed your blueberries, be sure they are completely dry. Personally, I just use them directly from the packaging and take my chances. I figure the oven time should kill any thing lurking. Do insure that there aren't any stems still stuck on the blueberry.

Lightly coat the blueberries with flour. This helps keep the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffin while baking. Add the blueberries to the batter and very carefully, fold the berries into the batter, incorporating them evenly.

 I took an ice cream scoop and filled each section of the muffin tin with the batter. I wanted these muffins to be big so I filled them even with the top of the muffin tin surface. Since I only used a 6-muffin tin (because of my lazy butt) I had batter left over and didn't have the heart to just throw it away. I thought about eating it raw, though, but better judgement prevailed and I grabbed a ramekin and poured the rest of the batter into it, almost like making a blueberry cobbler look-a-like.

  

Now for the best part: the topping

The butter must be cold. Cut the butter into tiny cubes and add the flour and sugar to it. This is when it gets messy. Using your hands, work the mixture through your finger tips until it is well-combined. Sprinkle this mixture over the top surface of your muffin batter.

What You'll Need to Know to Finish
This is completely optional, but if you can find it in your grocery store, I sprinkle raw cane sugar over each muffin top before placing in the oven to bake. I love the crispy texture it creates over the muffin top - classic!

Place the muffin tin (and in my case the ramekin, as well) into the oven on the rack that is placed at the top 1/3 of the oven. In my oven that would be the second "shelf" from the top. You don't want your muffins growing up and into your broiler coils!

Before

After

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the muffins are fluffed up and golden. A toothpick test would do the trick to test for doneness. Just insert a toothpick in the middle of a muffin and if it comes out clean, it's done.

 Let the muffin tin cool on a baking rack for 15 minutes. Take a thin knife and edge around the muffin in the tin to loosen it's grip from the pan. As you can see in my photo at the top of this post, I was pressed for time, didn't wait for the muffin to cool, and only got the top half of the muffin for picture-taking. Oh, well. Delicious nonetheless. Enjoy!

What's your favorite kind of muffin?

Mine is something called a Morning Glory Muffin. I'll have to share that recipe one day with you, too!