Thursday, July 9, 2009

Lemon-Sugar Crusted Blueberry Muffins

Recipe From: My Kitchen Cafe Blog
Aunt Melissa came over for baking day and picked out our recipe. We don't get a beauty award for these muffins...we refuse to show the "right out of the oven photo." The lemon-sugar on top is the best part...although it didn't quite crust like it was supposed to.
Ingredients:
2 cups blueberries (fresh)
1 1/8 cups plus 1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
4 tbsp butter (melted and cooled slightly)
1/4 cup oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Lemon-Sugar Topping:
1/3 cup sugar
zest from one lemon

For the topping, stir together sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and set aside.

For the muffins, adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a standard muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Rinse one cup berries under cold water and spread on a double layer of paper towels to dry well. Bring remaining one cup berries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing berries with a spoon several times and stirring frequently, until the berries have broken down and the mixture is thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 6-8 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and cool to room temperature, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Toss the berries that have dried on the paper towels in with the flour mixture. In another bowl, whisk remaining 1 1/8 cups sugar and eggs together until thick, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in the butter and oil until combined. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold egg mixture into flour mixture until just moistened. The batter will be lumpy with a few dry spots of flour - don't overmix. Using ice cream scoop or large spoon, divide the batter equally among prepared muffin cups (batter should completely fill the cups). Spoon a teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into the center of each mound of batter. Using a skewer (or a chopstick), gently swirl the berry filling into the batter using a figure eight motion. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over the muffins.Bake until the top of the muffins are golden and just firm, 17-18 minutes. Cool muffins in the muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.

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