Blueberry Muffins

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I was trying to decide what I was going to blog about next while I was outside in the garden. We’ve got silks on the corn stalks that the june bugs are invading, a TON of green tomatoes, baby peppers in excess, and my green bean plants are starting to slow down. As I was walking back inside I took a gander at my blueberry bush. It is literally alive with berries!

I’m not a blueberry fan. They’re just not my fruit. Now strawberries, raspberries, peaches, and watermelon I will eat until I bust. I know you’re asking then why do you have a blueberry bush. My Grandpa Bower planted that bush in the 1980’s when he and my Nana first moved here. It’s actually 4 bushes that have grown together. My Grandpa could make anything grow. And that bush has thrived since then. So even though I don’t like blueberries, that bush is very dear to me.

And then it dawned on me that I hadn’t made blueberry muffins in a while!

I may not like blueberries, but I have discovered I do like a good blueberry muffin. And this recipe is just divine. Simple, easy, scrumptious blueberry muffins. This is another Pinterest find. Kristyn at Lil’ Luna came up with this recipe. She has directions for making these as mini muffins as well as a crumb topping you could add. Check out her site; I need to spend some time perusing it as well.

Here’s what you will need:

• softened butter
• sugar
• 2 eggs
• vanilla extract
• all purpose flour
• salt
• baking powder
• milk or milk substitute
• 2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• coarse sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and put liners in your muffin cups. The recipe says it makes 12 muffins, but I always end up with 15-16 muffins. Unless you overfill your muffin cups, you will end up with more than a dozen muffins.

Make sure you let your butter sit out and soften first

You will need 1/2 cup softened butter. Once it is room temperature place it in a large bowl. Add 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar and beat well. You can use your stand mixer if you would like or just mix it up good by hand.

Pull out two eggs and crack them in another bowl

Add your 2 eggs to the creamed mixture and blend well. I suggest cracking them into another bowl just to avoid having to dig out eggshells that may fall in the batter. Once you eggs are blended in nicely make sure to scrape the sides and bottom well. Now add 1 tsp vanilla extract and mix it in.

Set that bowl aside and grab a second bowl for the dry ingredients

Yeah I should’ve done that but I was rushing. With two little ones I feel like that’s all I do at times, rush from one thing to the next. This recipe you can get away with not sifting the dry ingredients together first. Just make sure you don’t beat the batter to death. Mix them in so there are no big lumps and then let it be.

Sift together 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 2 cups all purpose flour. Then add this slowly to the creamed mixture a little at a time. I alternate a little of the dry ingredients and then some of the 1/2 cup milk. I used vanilla almond milk for this and it works nicely.

Fresh or frozen blueberries work well in this recipe.

You will need 2 cups of blueberries. The original recipe has you take 1/2 cup of the blueberries and mash them before adding them to the batter. If you have a stand mixer you can just dump the 2 cups in and mix them up for a minute and about that many will mash up. Now if your blueberries are frozen that won’t work so well.

It ends up being a decision of how do you like your muffins. Do you like a plainer muffin with blueberries in it or a muffin that each and every bite is going to have blueberry? If you want blueberry in every bite then make sure to mash some of them. I cheated. I used frozen blueberries but let them sit out for about 30 minutes before I started mixing things up. They softened up so that when I threw the 2 cups in the mixer enough of them mashed up. If you use frozen blueberries your batter will get really stiff. Don’t worry it will be fine, but you may need to adjust your cooking time.

Who’s ready for warm yummy muffins? We’re almost there!

Fill the muffin cups 3/4 of the way full until you run out of batter. This time I got 16 muffins. I typically get between 15-16 muffins.

The recipe calls for 1/8 cup coarse sugar. Coarse sugar is not something I use very often. As expensive as everything has gotten lately, I’m really trying not to buy things I don’t use often. I had some leftover sparkling sugar from when I used to decorate cakes, so I decided to try sprinkling some on top of half the muffins. I didn’t measure. I just put a nice amount on top and called it good.

Tah-dah! Sugar sprinkles on muffins!

The recipe says to cook the muffins for 30 minutes. I started checking mine after 20 minutes. Food cooks differently in a convection oven so I typically don’t start out with the full time just to be safe. This time my muffins cooked for 27 minutes.

And there ya go! Soft, fluffy, yummy blueberry muffins! They freeze very well, if they last that long. I like them both with the sugar on top and without it. I did not notice that much difference with sugar added to the top.