You can’t really be in the business of making breakfast in Alaska without having a go-to recipe for blueberry muffins, especially as we’re heading into blueberry season. My son Neri described exactly what he wanted for breakfast to me the other night: a fragrant muffin that rises high out of the cup, chock full of blueberries, with a lot of streusel topping.
I happen to have just such a muffin recipe in my back pocket. I never make it totally the same and tend to riff. You can too. Sometimes I add lemon zest, sometimes I skip. Sometimes I add just a tiny drop of almond extract and throw some slivered almonds in the topping. I often reduce the sugar to 2/3 cup when I use store-bought berries, which tend to be less tart. And, I use whatever dairy I have on hand for the liquid, including heavy cream, buttermilk or even plain yogurt or sour cream.
For a tidy look, when I’m using store-bought berries, I toss them in a little bit of the dry ingredients. This keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin cup and eases their tendency to bleed juices. It’s far harder to control those things with wild blueberries, but I still do the toss. Frozen blueberries should be added when they are thawed. Those are going to turn a muffin blue no matter what, but there’s something kind of nice about that too.
Essential Alaska blueberry muffins
Makes 12
Ingredients
For the muffins:
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk (can substitute buttermilk or sour cream)
1/2 cup (one cube) salted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups fresh blueberries
For the topping:
1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cold salted butter
Method: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12-muffin pan with paper muffin cups. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pull out a 1/4 cup of that dry mixture and set it aside in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, melted butter, milk, lemon zest and vanilla. Pour that mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined into a batter. In the bowl with the 1/4 cup of dry ingredients, gently toss the blueberries until they’re floured. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Now make the topping. Combine all the dry topping ingredients in a bowl. Using your hand, work the butter into the dry ingredients until it is broken down to balls slightly smaller than a pea. Using a cookie scoop or spoon, fill each muffin cup with 4 tablespoons of batter. Sprinkle each with a little less than a tablespoon of the topping. Bake for 20 minutes or until the top of a muffin springs back when you press it. Serve warm with butter.