On Wednesday, my work, American Land Conservancy had a staff meeting. Instead of buying store bought muffins I wanted to bring some freshly baked ones in. I pretty much use Smitten Kitchen as a place to find really yummy recipes. The recipe I found on her website looked and sounded pretty easy. So, I decided to use this one. I remember using creme friesh in a lemon cake instead of using sour cream and it tasted so good. The blueberry muffin recipe called for plain yogurt. Since I doubled this recipe I used half plain yogurt and half creme fraiche. I also lowered the sugar to 3/4 cup instead of 1 cup. I love a little crunch to my muffins so I added a topping of brown sugar and walnuts mixed with the juice of the blueberries. I think I made a winner!
I also made the batter the night before and in the morning added the blueberries so they would be extra fresh and warm when we ate them!
Perfect Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated(Find the original recipe at Smitten Kitchen)
Makes 16 to 18 standard muffins
10 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
3/4 cup of creme freshie
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. 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 on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter.
1 comment:
I was going to make this EXACT recipe from Smitten Kitchen yesterday, but the weather was scorching. I think I'll try it with your topping of walnuts and brown sugar as soon as the fog layer comes back to my neighborhood. Yum!
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