Very Blueberry Muffins
These very blueberry muffins rely on a few tricks to ensure even berry distribution and big blueberry flavor.
With most blueberry muffin recipes, the berries tend to sink to the bottom (tossing them in flour doesn’t actually help much), and there’s an overall lack of deep blueberry flavor. To fix this, I’ve added two simple steps: press a small amount of the rather thick batter into the bottom of the muffin tin wells before you add the berries, and cook half the berries down with some lemon juice and sugar and swirl that into the batter. You can skip either of these steps and simply fold in all the berries toward the end, but at least give these tweaks a try—I think they’re worth it.
Yield:
12 muffinsIngredients
7 ounces (about 2 cups) fresh blueberries, divided
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons plus ¾ cup granulated sugar
2 1/3 cups (340 grams) all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
Scant ½ teaspoon table salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
½ cup cold buttermilk
2 large eggs, cold
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling on top
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick baking spray.
In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stir together 1 cup blueberries (half the total amount) with the lemon juice and 2 teaspoons sugar. Bring the mixture to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring, until the blueberries split their skins and the mixture thickens a bit, about 6 minutes. Pour into a bowl and set aside to cool.
Now, make the batter: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, ¾ cup sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Sprinkle the cold butter cubes over the dry ingredients, then use a handheld or a stand mixer (with paddle attachment) on low speed to blend in the butter until the mixture looks like coarse meal with only very small pieces of butter.
In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Add this to the dry mixture and stir just until everything is combined and there are no dried bits at the bottom of the bowl. The mixture will be quite thick. Now press a walnut-sized piece of batter into the bottom of each well of your muffin pan. This will prevent the berries from sinking to the bottom.
Use a spatula to stir in the fresh blueberries until evenly combined. Now, make a little well in the center of the batter. Pour the cooked blueberries into it. Using a skewer or chopsticks, swirl this mixture partway into the batter just until it’s lightly marbled. (You want distinct areas of white and purple batter.) Use an ice cream scoop to evenly portion the batter among the wells of the muffin tin. Sprinkle muffins with cinnamon sugar and bake until nicely domed and firm on top, 15 to 20 minutes, turning the pan 180 degrees halfway through baking. Cool the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes, then let them finish cooling on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
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