Blueberry Muffins

The blueberries at the market have been amazing this summer. I can't seem to get enough. I've been eating them plain or with my morning muesli, but the call to bake was too strong to ignore.

On Saturday I whip up a batch of blueberry muffins to bring along to our friend's house. The first batch looked so good, I made a second on Sunday morning for Kevin and myself.

I got the recipe from Epricurious and it's almost perfect. I prefer my muffins a little less sweet, so I reduced the sugar. I replaced the whole milk with buttermilk, as was suggested by some of the comment. (It's what I had on-hand.) Also, since I’m in Germany and am forced to use single-acting baking powder instead of the double-acting kind available in the U.S. I modified the instructions so that the liquids get mixed into the flour as close to the time of baking as possible. Below is my revised recipe.

Batter
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 whole large egg
1 large yolk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups fresh blueberries (12 oz)

Topping
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tablespoons raw sugar
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Greece muffin tins or insert muffin liners.

Melt butter. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. To the melted butter, add buttermilk, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Whisk together until light yellow.

In a separate bowl add flour and sugar for topping. Cut butter into small pieces and add to the bowl. Using your finger pinch together the butter until all the dry ingredients are mixed in. It should have some pie-sized clumps. Set aside until the batter is spooned into the muffin tins.

Mix the wet muffin ingredients into the dry muffin ingredients. Mix until incorporated. Add berries and gently incorporate. Divide batter evenly among twelve muffin cups. Add topping.

Bake for about 18 minutes. Check doneness by sticking a skewer into the middle of a muffin. When it comes out dry, the muffins are done.

Cool slightly before removing from muffin tins. If you are using silicone muffin trays, which are my new favorite toy, wait until the muffins are completely cool before removing.