Every time I make muffins I find myself wishing I made them more often. I realize there are healthier things I could eat for breakfast than a muffin, but starting the morning with orange juice and a freshly baked blueberry muffin just feels right. It's the one muffin flavor we can all agree on (I'm sure there are some blueberry haters out there who disagree).

There are a few components to the perfect blueberry muffin. It can't be so dense that you need something to wash it down. It has to have blueberries in every single bite, and the top always needs to be the best part. Maybe the top is the best because it has that fully-baked yet still gooey thing going on. Maybe it's sprinkled with sugar. I personally love streusel. These muffins are chock full of berries, they're not too heavy and the streusel on top is amazing. I've never made a blueberry muffin recipe with oatmeal in the streusel, but I've been missing out.

When I went back to grab this recipe for the post, I realized there was a glaze that I completely skipped. Note to self: don't get so distracted by the amazing smell of the muffins coming out of the oven that you forget everything else you were doing. The good news is that they were already great without it, so when you make them they will be even better! Do as I say, not as I do....except the part about making and eating these muffins. Because that part you should absolutely do.

Bakery Style Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Recipe from The Cafe Sucre Farine
Serves: 12

Ingredients

CRUMB TOPPING
    5 tablespoons butter
    ½ cup sugar
    ½ cup flour
    ½ cup oatmeal
    ¼ teaspoon salt

MUFFINS
    2 cups all purpose flour
    1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
    ½ teaspoon salt
    ½ cup butter, softened
    1 cup sugar
    2 large eggs
    ½ cup buttermilk
    finely grated zest of 1 lemon
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
  
 GLAZE
    3 tablespoons lemon (juice)
    1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1.     Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners
2.     Make the crumb topping by combining the melted butter, sugar, flour, oatmeal and salt. Stir with a fork until crumbs form. Set aside.
3.     Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium size bowl. Set aside.
4.     If using frozen blueberries, place them in a small bowl and return to freezer until ready to use. If using fresh berries, place in a small bowl and set aside.
5.     In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter for 1 minute until soft and fluffy. Add sugar and continue to beat for 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time and beat just until incorporated. Add buttermilk, vanilla and lemon zest and mix on low until combined.
6.     Remove bowl from mixer. Add flour mixture and stir, by hand, until flour disappears. Do not over mix or muffins will be tough. Gently stir in blueberries.
7.     Divide mixture evenly in the prepared muffin pan. Sprinkle with the crumb topping.
8.     Bake at 350˚F for 22 to 25 minutes or until light golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack. Drizzle lightly with the lemon glaze.
9.     For lemon glaze, combine powdered sugar and lemon juice in a medium size bowl. Stir with a fork or whisk until smooth.

One of my favorite things about summer is fresh fruit. As much as I love chocolate and all other unhealthy foods, if fresh fruit wasn't such a rarity at all times except summer, I'd probably be much healthier (I can say this since it'll never happen). Blueberries work with everything: breads, muffins, pies, pancakes, ice cream, smoothies. What a dynamic little fruit.

Back in the day when I was applying to colleges I saw an essay contest for the North Carolina Blueberry Festival (because apparently I come from a blueberry-loving state) where you could win some sort of scholarship just for writing about blueberries. I remember thinking, seriously...an essay about blueberries? That's it? I LOVE BLUEBERRIES! How could I not win?

Well, procrastinating and never writing the essay is one way. A few months down the road I was talking with a friend of mine who was laughing about how he won a scholarship for writing an essay about blueberries, and that he didn't even like blueberries. Naturally I've been kicking myself ever since. I'll spare you all from my long-overdue essay on blueberries, but I will give you this amazing blueberry muffin recipe.

Blueberry muffins should be bursting with fresh blueberries. The key is not to have a single bite without a blueberry. This recipe takes things up a notch by adding a homemade blueberry jam on top and swirling it around a bit. And just in case you still felt like taking things up even more, you then add a crunchy lemon sugar topping. You can taste the crunch of the sugar, and oh is it good. I added about 1/4 cup extra blueberries to the pan while cooking down the blueberries because I wanted as much blueberry flavor as possible. I doubt that was necessary, but mission accomplished.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins

Recipe from The Little Kitchen
Yield: 12 Muffins

Ingredients

Lemon-Sugar Topping:

1/3 cup sugar (2 1/3 ounces)
1 1/2 tsp finely grated zest from 1 lemon

Muffins:

Non-stick cooking or baking spray, I used Baker's Joy
2 cups fresh blueberries (about 10 ounces), picked over
1 1/8 cups sugar (8 ounces) plus 1 tsp
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
2 large eggs
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

FOR THE TOPPING: Combine sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir. Set aside.

FOR THE MUFFINS: If not already done, move oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Spray muffin tin with baking spray.

Add 1 cup blueberries and 1 teaspoon sugar to a small saucepan at medium heat. Allow to simmer and cook, mash the berries with the back of a spoon until all of the berries are broken down. Stir frequently and cook until mixture is thickened and reduced to about ¼ cup, about 6 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt to a large bowl and whisk.

To another bowl, add 1 1/8 cups sugar and eggs and whisk until thick, about 45 seconds. Whisk in butter and oil slowly, until combined. Then, whisk buttermilk and vanilla in, until combined.

Using rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, fold in egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. (Do not overmix. The batter will be lumpy and that's fine.)

Using an ice cream scoop or cookie scoop, add batter evenly to each of the muffin cups. The muffin cups will be full. Take one teaspoon of the cooled blueberry jam and add to the top of each mound of batter. Using a chopstick or skewer, swirl the jam into the batter a few times. (Cook's Illustrated says to use figure eight motions.)

Add the lemon-sugar topping evenly over all of the muffins.

Bake the muffins until they are just about gold on top, about 17-19 minutes. Halfway through the baking time, be sure to rotate the muffin tin. Allow muffins to cool in the muffin tin for about 2-3 minutes. Using a butter knife or offset spatula, remove the muffins from the tin and allow them to rest at an angle. Cool for another 5 minutes and place on a cooling rack. Serve with softened butter.
These muffins can be stored in a zippered plastic bag for 2-3 days.

I'm all about any excuse to justify chocolate with breakfast. Truthfully it doesn't take much, as I usually have some sort of chocolate stashed in my desk that I eat before 10am anyways, but that's neither here nor there. There's something about biting into a muffin or piece of coffee cake that seems to start the day off right. I'd be in trouble if I kept either around the house on a regular basis because I love breakfast sweets so much I end up eating them all day long. I don't know how some people skip breakfast. It's literally the first thing I think about every morning. 

I brought these muffins into work today and everyone kept calling them cupcakes because they are chocolate...with chocolate chips. I've always thought muffins and cupcakes differed in two main ways. I'm sure Google could answer this question as well, but I won't bother looking it up. The first is that muffins don't have icing. It doesn't matter this muffin is rich and chocolatey. It doesn't have icing. It's a muffin! The exception: coffee cake muffins with any sort of glaze. It can still be a muffin even with a sweet glaze. Go ahead and eat it for breakfast. No one's judging. The second is the way in which the ingredients are combined. Here's where these delicious chocolate muffins tip toe the line.

I got this recipe from Dough Puncher, and though she originally combined the ingredients according to a standard cupcake method, she suggested that she might like it better if she switched to the cake method next time. Well, she may not have tried her recommendation yet, but I'm here to vouch for these muffins mixed according to the cake method. These are so good I see no reason to go back to the original method next time. They are most certainly muffins, but they're sweet enough that you wouldn't imagine spreading a piece of butter or jam on them like some people do with muffins.

The flavor is rich and chocolatey. The texture is denser than some of the lighter muffins (which, let's be real, we could eat like five of anyways), but lighter than most cakes. They stayed moist (sorry) beyond the first day and a half, and that's a big accomplishment with muffins. You will LOVE these. Make them and find any way to share them..because keeping them around the house is a dangerous thing!

Double Chocolate Muffins

Recipe from Dough Puncher (adapted from Barbara Bakes)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whatever you have works)

1/3 cup sour cream

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used mini chips)

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners to make 12 muffins.

2) Cream together the butter, sugar, sour cream, and vanilla until light and fluffy - about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated between each addition.

3) Stir together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with the milk, in 2-3 additions each (so add a third of the flour, half of the milk, another third of the flour, etc.).

4) Divide batter between 12 muffin cups and bake 24-27 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean (a little melted chocolate is fine - the toothpick may hit a melty chocolate chip). 

When life gives you blueberries, you make blueberry muffins. Unfortunately, life (or your neighborhood grocery store in this case) does not always give you blueberries. I'm not one to shy away from out of season fruit--with the exception of watermelon--so when I decided a week ago that I was making blueberry muffins I didn't even consider that I wouldn't be able to find any. What I did find was 2 for 1 strawberries. Order was restored and I took this delicious blueberry muffin with blueberry jam recipe and just subbed in strawberries.

The only thing I didn't like about these is that I "forgot" to give any away and I couldn't eat them all on my own. Strawberries tend to hold a lot of moisture, so you won't be able to get away with eating them a few days in unless you happen to enjoy mold. I'm sure keeping them in the fridge would help. I've never frozen muffins before, but I popped a few of these in the freezer to test out the results. I'll update the post when I try them.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Lemon Muffins
Recipe Adapted from Damn Delicious

Yields 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sliced strawberries, divided
• 3/4 cup and 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the lemon sugar topping:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• Zest of 1 lemon

DIRECTIONS:Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners or coat with nonstick spray; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup strawberries and 1 tablespoon sugar. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce has thickened, about 10 minutes. Let cool 10-15 minutes.

To make the lemon sugar topping, combine the sugar and lemon zest, rubbing the zest into the sugar with your fingertips; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, remaining 3/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla.
Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.
Add the remaining 1 cup sliced strawberries and gently toss to combine.
Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tray. Top each muffin with 1 teaspoon strawberry jam, swirling into the batter using figure eight motions. Sprinkle with lemon sugar mixture.

Place into oven and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

ps - Sorry for the lack of creative place settings. This is what happens when you rush pictures.

I doubt I will ever stop trying new blueberry muffin recipes. I'm on an eternal search for a recipe that makes blueberry muffins like the ones you can find at coffee shops and bakeries. Sadly, the recipes I've tried have never compared. They're great, but I want the big honkin', this will keep me full for hours muffin. I'm sure it helps that bakeries make their muffins twice the normal size. Same thing with Costco cupcakes and muffins. Is there a reason they make them as large as a small child's head? No. Do we appreciate that they make 4,000 calorie cupcakes and muffins? Yes.

Ok, ok. 4,000 may be a bit of an exaggeration.

But I found something the other day that might shed some light on how bakeries do it. It's called a crown pan, and it creates those giant muffin tops (in more ways than one) that bakery muffins are marked by. I may be a little behind in learning this is the trick, but I think I will make this my next baking purchase. Has anyone ever tried this kind of pan? 

All of that may seem like I'm inferring that these muffins aren't great, or that I wasn't completely satisfied with them. That is definitely not the case.  I really liked these. The lemon zest in the batter and the sugar sprinkled on top are what really set these apart from some of the more standard recipes. They are very light and not surprisingly didn't last long in my house. Until I find my dream muffin, looks like I'll stick with these. I'm ok with that, but if anyone has a great blueberry muffin recipe feel free to share!



Blueberry Muffins
Recipe from: The Guy Who Cooks

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 cups + 2 Tbsp white granulated sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract/emulsion (or 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon zest)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream (or yogurt)
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries (all stems removed)

Directions:

1.) Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees and grease muffin pan or line with 12 muffins cups.
2.) In a separate side bowl mix the flour, salt, and baking soda.
3.)  In your mixing bowl beat the eggs and sugar until evenly combined, about 1 minute. Continue beating and slowly pour in the melted butter and mix until well combined.
4.) Add in extracts and mix until evenly combined.
5.) Add the flour, salt and baking soda mixture alternatively with the sour cream (or yogurt) and mix until just combined (a few dry specs of flour is ok).
6.)  With a spatula fold in blueberries.
7.) Pour batter into muffin cups about 3/4 full and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
8.) With five minutes left, sprinkle the sparkling sugar on the tops of the muffins and bake for another 5 minutes (so that means a 20 minute bake time in total).
9.)  Take out of oven and allow to cool in the muffin pan for five minutes.  Remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.
10.) Enjoy! (note: as with most baked goods, these are even better the next day)

My brother asked me the other day if I ever got tired of receiving cookbooks for Christmas. This year may have been a record: eight cookbooks. I guess he thought that was a little excessive, but I honestly never get tired of them.  I love reading through each and every page and finding recipes to try out. The best part is that you never grow out of a good cookbook. A great recipe 50 years ago is most likely a great recipe now (with the exception of recipes from the jello mold phase that my grandmother attempts to bring back from time to time). Cookbooks are timeless.

I've been wanting The Pioneer Woman Cooks for a long time now. I got it this Christmas, and I am already obsessed. There is nothing fancy about the cookbook, but it's good. In fact, it's great. I'm at the beach this week with family and friends, and there are 19 of us to feed. What better time to break out the new cookbooks? I started by making these breakfast puffs because there's a bakery in town that makes something very similar. They're called doughnut muffins at the bakery, but that doesn't matter because french breakfast puffs have now replaced doughnut muffins for all of us. These are not light and airy like the name "puff" might imply, but the incredible flavor works well with the dense centers. I would compare them to the consistency of a poundcake. The 19 people who ate these will all vouch that they are delicious.  The only issue I ran into was that there weren't enough to go around. That's not an issue at all, though. Batch number two is on the way!


French Breakfast Puffs
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Puffs:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Coating:
1/2 pound (2 sticks butter)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.
• In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
• In a separate large bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening. 
• Add the eggs and mix again.
• Alternate adding one-third of the flour mixture and one-third of the milk to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
• Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden. Remove the muffins from the pan and set aside. 
• To make the coating, melt the butter in a bowl or glass pan. In a separate container, combine the sugar and cinnamon.
• Dip the warm muffins in the butter, coating thoroughly...
• Then roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Also: after cooling completely, puffs can be frozen in plastic bags and reheated later.

 

It wasn't until freshman year of college that I realized what an amazing ingredient pumpkin is. I have never been a big fan of pumpkin pie, and I think this must have always scared me off from ever trying anything else with pumpkin. It's really a shame I went through so much of my life without it. Then came that fateful care package to my freshman year roommate with a freshly made loaf of pumpkin bread. This was one of those loaves with a perfectly cooked inside but a gooey sugary crust on top. It was all over from there. I went pumpkin crazy and haven't looked back since. It just goes to show that the best friendships start over food. She shared. I love pumpkin bread. We're now best friends. Wonderful how those things work out, isn't it?

Now to these muffins. I don't know where to begin. I'm a harsh critic of all of my baked goods. I rarely will say I love something, but the second I tried one of these I not only loved them, I was in love with them. So were all of my roommates. They are incredible. There's nothing I would change about this recipe. The muffin itself is amazing enough to evoke the "Oh my god" reaction. Then you get a bite with cream cheese and all that love is taken up a notch.  Helllloo fall. Best muffins ever.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Recipe from Annie's Eats
Yield: 24 muffins
Ingredients:
For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
For the muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil
For the topping:
½ cup sugar
5 tbsp. flour
1½ tsp. ground cinnamon
4 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Directions:
To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth.  Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log about 1½-inches in diameter.  Smooth the plastic wrap tightly around the log, and reinforce with a piece of foil.  Transfer to the freezer and chill until at least slightly firm, at least 2 hours.
To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line muffin pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil.  Mix on medium-low speed until blended.  With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.
To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; whisk to blend.  Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly.  Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.
To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin well with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom of the liner (1-2 tablespoons).  Slice the log of cream cheese filling into 24 equal pieces.  Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well.  Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups, placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely.  Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin wells.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.  (It may be hard to resist immediate consumption, but the cream cheese filling gets very hot!)

We bought another giant carton of blueberries from Costco last week which instantly meant it was time to do some baking. The only problem with blueberries is that I've found so many blueberry recipes I really love that I usually just stick to those. When it comes to food blogging, the tendency to do this is bad because it means no new posts. My two favorite blueberry recipes are a blueberry pie and Dorie Greenspan's blueberry coffee cake. The coffee cake is on the blog, but I haven't made the pie since I started blogging so I promise that will make it on here in the future.  I had never tried these muffins before, but the recipe is super easy and has all of my favorite ingredients which is enough for me to give it a shot. The crumb topping honestly makes it like a muffin coffee cake. I was determined to use as much of the crumb topping on each muffin as possible, but that just ended up in a thick sugar crust that broke off really easily. Next time I think I'll try to fight the urge just a little more (or maybe do the same thing but just make sure to press the crumb into the muffin batter more). I thought these were great though.  These mainly fall in the breakfast category but depending on how much crumb topping you use, it also works as dessert. Shoot, I'd even pair one of these with ice cream they're so sweet. But, then again, I'd pair basically anything with ice cream so that's not saying much. One last note, I baked these for 20 minutes, which is the minimum time, and they were perfect. A minute more might have ruined them, so keep a close eye on them while baking so they don't get burnt.

Blueberry muffins

Recipe from Vanilla & Lace
MAKES 12
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

For the streusal topping:
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup earth balance (or butter), cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup earth balance, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking. (You may not use all the topping)
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.