No muffin repertoire is complete without a classic blueberry streusel muffin. I've tried many different recipes before, most claiming that they are the best. It's a personal preference I suppose, but I am not particularly fond of recipes that depend on heavy use of butter to tenderize. When I see a pool of melted butter underneath the baked muffins, I get a little queasy. So far, my favourite recipe comes from Regan Daley's In The Sweet Kitchen except for the fact that it is more labour intensive than most muffin recipes (therefore not a good recipe to attempt before my morning coffee!). One interesting thing I notice, however, is that blueberry muffin is most likely to veer from the classic quick bread method and incorporate a butter cake mixing method instead (depending on mechanical rise from butter and sugar in addition to chemical rise). Perhaps people generally expect a more tender, cake-like texture when they eat blueberry muffins?
A few days ago, I purchased a copy of The Best Of America's Test Kitchen: Best Recipes And Reviews 2008. I was attracted by Cook's Illustrated's version of "the best" blueberry muffin. In the past, I've had pretty good experience with the recipes from this source so I am curious to try. It uses the classic quick bread mixing method so if I make the stresel ahead of time, it is convenient enough to be a good alternative for early morning muffin baking. The following recipe is my adaptation.
Ingredients
Streusel:
- 175g all-purpose flour
- 65g dark brown sugar
- 65g granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- 100g unsalted butter, melted
Muffin
- 285g all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200g granulated sugar
- grated zest from half a lemon
- 55g unsalted butter, melted
- 125mL buttermilk
- 1 1/2 cup frozen wild blueberries (don't take them out of the freezer until just before adding them to the batter)
Method
- To make the streusel: In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Pour in the melted butter and toss with a fork until the mixture forms into pea-size crumb. This recipe makes enough streusel for many batches of muffin. You can store the extra streusel in the freezer for later use.
- To make the muffin: Preheat oven to 375F. Line a dozen-size muffin pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together egg, sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon zest until thick and pale. Whisk in buttermilk and then melted butter.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix gently until just combined. Fold in the blueberries using as few strokes as possible. Since the berries are very cold, the batter will turn very stiff.
- Divide batter among the muffin pan. Sprinkle each muffin with a tablespoon of streusel. Lightly pressing the crumbs to the batter.
- Bake for 25 minutes until golden and cake tester comes out clean. Makes one dozen muffins.
