So this is how it begins… at the forest’s edge with the wife and kids discovering that our wild blueberries have begun to ripen. Five seconds later with a plastic tub and the little ones in tow, it was time to pick the blueberries off of two high bush blueberry plants that we discovered this spring as our sugaring season was winding down. We decided on blueberry muffins for breakfast the following morning.
The next morning, with a little more than two cups of fresh, wild, New Hampshire blueberries, it was time to Google a recipe for the “best wild blueberry muffin”. Fifth down from the top was the recipe that caught my eye. “To die for blueberry muffins” from Allrecipes.com, in the blurb I saw over 5,000 reviews and it had a 4.5 star rating so that was all I needed to see to get started. The recipe below is slightly tweaked from the original.
The Dry – Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl:
- 1-1/2 cups flour
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
The Wet – Combine the wet ingredients in a 1-cup measuring cup:
- 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
- 1 egg, beaten with a fork
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon of lemon extract
- fill the balance of the measuring cup with milk (approximately 1/3 of a cup)
The Batter – Add the wet to the dry (I added the zest from a whole lemon too) and mix gently with a rubber spatula. Once the batter is just mixed (no dry flour showing) I folded in about 1-1/2 cups of blueberries. Do not over mix! Let the batter sit while you make the crumble.
The Crumble – I halved the original dry ingredients below, because I had way too much crumble left over and it was not as clumpy so I left the butter as specified. Mix the ingredients with a fork. You are looking for clumpiness here.
- 1/4 cup of softened butter
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- 1/8 cup of flour
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Assembly – I filled a 12-muffin tin with muffin cups and sprayed the top of the pan with “Pam”. I added the batter to about 2/3 full in each cup, this used all of the batter, some were smaller than others, so next time I would go 10 muffins for this recipe. Next, I sprinkled the crumb topping on top of the batter and placed them into a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes.
Anticipation – Cooling, after removing from the oven…
Yummy Yummy! – As my two year old said as he was eating his first blueberry muffins.