Thursday, July 19, 2012

Mini Blueberry Muffins

As you might imagine, I have a lot to catch up on. In the meantime, let us talk about this incredible blueberry muffin recipe I came across, and the results it produced.


Tonight I was pondering how timing of eating a baked good really makes a difference. These muffins were one of those things where, all though I'm positive they will still taste heavenly tomorrow, just nothing can beat one of these little jobbers coming warm out of the oven and right into my tummy! I'm pretty obsessed with all things chocolate that are warm out of the oven, but I don't think I do enough with blueberries- the explosive taste they have, warm out of the oven, when you bite into it and it pops in your mouth, is spectacular!  

Also on AllRecipes.com, I originally found this recipe at another site I like, Simply Sifted. Only now am I reading all of the reviews on allrecipes.com. Since this is the first time I've seriously made blueberry muffins, I'm feeling kind of guilty that it took a lot of people that wrote reviews here such a long time to find the perfect muffin recipe. Still, helpful to read reviews sometimes for fun substitutions and tips! 

I actually halved this recipe and made mini muffins instead of the full. I still baked at 400 degrees, for about 14 minutes (make sure to do the toothpick test), and got about 9 muffins. Which was awesome because I got to try the recipe out without having too many muffins lying around, not knowing what to do with them. **wink, wink** I'm beginning to like mini muffins way more than regular sized muffins, I like the way you can just pop them right into your mouth!


Lemon Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:
For Muffin Batter
  • 1.5 cups all-purpose flour + 1 tablespoon to toss with blueberries
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • zest from 1 lemon (do not skip this step!)
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 egg (if you're halving the recipe, crack the egg, lightly beat, and then pour in half the liquid)
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 cup FRESH blueberries (and a few extra, for good measure ;-)) 
 For crumb topping  
  • 1/2 cup white sugar (or brown if you wish)
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup butter, cubed
  • 1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
  2. Make muffin batter. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and zest. Separately, combine vegetable oil, egg and milk. Mix in with dry ingredients. In another separate bowl, toss blueberries in 1 T flour and then fold in blueberries (Simply Sifted says this will help stop them from sinking in the batter, and my berries mixed quite nicely!). Fill muffin cups right to the top. (For mini muffins, I find that filling a cookie scoop with batter and pouring it into the muffin tin works perfectly).
  3. Make crumb topping. Mix together sugar, flour, cubed butter and cinnamon. Mixing with a fork works just fine, then sprinkle over muffins before baking.
  4. Bake for 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until poking with a toothpick comes out clean. Again, ~14 minutes for mini muffins, but set your timer for sooner than that so you can check them out in the process. 
  5. Remove from oven. Make sure they cool at least a little before you nibble on them. Otherwise, the roof of your mouth may have a bone to pick with you. Not that I know anything about that right now... ;-)
I still can't get over how good these were. The lemon zest is really a big deal. I hope they are just as good tomorrow! 

I've been baking, just not posting. Hopefully things will pick up soon! Someone really needs to try baking these and tell me that I'm not crazy and that they are as delicious as I believe them to be! 

Muffins! <3
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