I was over at another food blog becoming inspired to make my own ricotta cheese (which I plan to do later today) when I thought I’d check the recipe index there for a new recipe for blueberry muffins. I still had two cups of fresh blueberries left over from my trip last week to Mineola Farmer’s Market, and though they still looked perfect and were juicy and sweet, I wanted to use them before they decided to “give up the ghost,” as the old expression goes.  

Sure enough, there was a recipe for perfect blueberry muffins, as they were entitled. Since I’ve tried other recipes from Smitten Kitchen and loved them, I decided to trust the recipe and make them for my boys’ breakfast this morning. 

Oh, what a lovely bit of providence.  🙂

Mise en place commenced, and I got busy mixing ingredients.

 

 

 

 

These muffins turned out so well; they were not overly sweet, which allowed the berries to shine.  The texture was soft and they were quite moist, though that didn’t stop us from putting a little salted butter into the depths of them.  Perfect!

 

 

 

 

Here’s the recipe:

 

Perfect Blueberry Muffins
By Smitten Kitchen,  Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

 

Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins (Note: I doubled this recipe and ended up with 26 cupcake-sized muffins)

5 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup  sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon  baking powder
1/4 teaspoon  baking soda
1/4 teaspoon  salt
3/4 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 (about 3/4 full). Bake for 20 to 30 minutes (depending upon the size of your muffins and the heat of your oven; mine took about 23 minutes), until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean.

Try them soon when you get your fresh, warm and juicy blueberries from the farmer’s market or grocery store, or even better, from the blueberry farm!