Blackberry Muffins with Lime Glaze

It's been awhile since I've made muffins.  I came across an interesting looking muffin recipe on one of my favorite blogs this past weekend - My Baking Addiction Blog.  I just really had the urge to make them! She put blueberries in hers but I had a big container of fresh blackberries that I wanted to use.  So mine are blackberry muffins with lime glaze.  Sounds good huh?  I wasn't so impressed.  I mean, they are ok but not terrific. The flavor is kind of bland and I put at LEAST double the amount of extract, if not tripled it.  I think maybe I mixed mine too much because she described her muffins as having a tender doughnut like texture, mine were not super tender and they were more cake like.  I even sifted all of my dry ingredients together.  She put a lemon glaze on hers but I figured that lime would go better with blackberries so I used a mixture of fresh squeezed lime juice and powdered sugar for my glaze. The glaze is the best part.  They would be SUPER bland without the tart lime flavor.  So.....all in all, these muffins are perfectly acceptable but they need a little more of a flavor pop.

Blackberry Doughnut Muffins
Based on recipe from My Baking Addiction

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 1/3 cup fresh blackberries

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin, or line with 12 paper muffin cups.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter, vegetable oil, and sugars until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating to combine.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined. Fold in the blackberries.
4. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan, filling the cups nearly full.
5. Bake the muffins for 15 to 17 minutes, or until they’re a pale golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the middle of one of the center muffins comes out clean.
6. Prepare the glaze. (I used lime juice with powdered sugar - I doubled glazed mine)
7. When muffins have cooled slightly, dip the muffin crown into the glaze and allow the glaze to harden. At this point, you can leave them as is or go for the double dip. I glazed my muffins twice.
8. Serve warm, or cool on a rack and wrap airtight. Muffins will keep at room temperature for about a day.

 

Blueberry Muffins

There was a good sale on blueberries at Fred Myers. I bought too many.  The result?  Muffins.  I love a good blueberry muffin.  The only thing is....these were ok quality of blueberries but they certainly weren't flavor packed.  The muffins came out beautiful and tasted delicious but the blueberries could have had a bit more flavor & tartness. They were a bit watery.

This recipe is a combination of about 4 or 5 recipes so I cannot claim any one source.  Although the base started with America's Test Kitchen best blueberry muffins.  They gave me the idea of making a quick concentrated blueberry jam to swirl through the muffins before baking.  That was a great idea.  I also added several handfuls of fresh blueberries. Then I topped them with a cinammon, oat, brown sugar crunchy struesel.  I used my large muffin pan that creates really big crunchy golden brown extended muffin tops.   I love that pan. I don't even use liners.  I simply spray it well and pour in the batter. My muffins always pop right out.  I think I bought them at Williams Sonoma years ago.

If you are looking for a super quick muffin recipe, this one is not quite that. I mean, it's quicker than making cookies or a layer cake, but usually muffins are a dump in a one bowl thing, give it a quick stir and you are done.  These are a bit more time consuming because I made the blueberry jam first, then the struesel, then the batter..but still...not too bad of a time stealer.  They are certainly delicious.  It would be fun to play around a bit with the recipe...maybe use raspberries instead? Or use almond extract? Maybe even lemon extract?  Add nuts to the struesel? There are a lot of possibilities.  But with all the luscious berries coming into season, it's nice to have an awesome muffin recipe around.

Blueberry Muffins

4 cups fresh blueberries
Zest from half of lemon
2 1/2 cups sugar, plus one tablespoon
3 cups AP flour
2 cups wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (probably could use a bit more vanilla)


Set oven to 425 degrees
Adjust the rack to middle in the oven
Spray muffin pans or line with papers
(This recipe made 14 jumbo muffins for me)

Bring 2 cups blueberries, lemon zest and 1 tablespoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat.  Cook, mashing berries with a spoon several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced, about 6-8 minutes (this step of reducing took me about 15-20 minutes). Transfer to bowl and cool to room temperature, 10-15 minutes.


Whisk all purpose flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl (I sifted my dry ingredients). Whisk remaining 2 1/2 cups sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick. Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. The batter will be very lumpy with spots of dry flour; do not overmix!


Use an ice cream scoop or large spoon to divide batter equally among muffin cups (batter should completely fill cups and mound slightly). Spoon teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into center of each mound. Using chopstick or skewer, gently swirl berry filling into batter using figure eight motion.  Sprinkle a bunch of struesel on top of each muffin (I used about 2 tablespoons per muffin - struesel recipe below) 


Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, about 17-19 minutes (depends on the size of your muffins.mine took a lot longer), rotating muffin tin (front to back) halfway through cooking time. Cool muffins in tin for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool 5 more minutes before serving.



Struesel Recipe (this recipe made a lot of struesel, I had about a cup left over)


2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinammon
2 cubes butter, cold & cut into pieces
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup old fashion oats

Combine all of the ingredients (except the oats) in a food processor and whirl till small butter lumps remain - about the size of peas.  After processing, whisk in the oats.

Lemon Crumb Muffins

Are you a lemon fan??  Well then these are the muffins for you!  There is lemon juice, lemon zest and lemon extract in these.  The glaze that is spread on top after the muffins are baked makes for a nice tart but sweet bite!  The edges are super crunchy and the muffin itself is moist with a fine crumb and lots of deep lemon flavor. This recipe makes a lot of muffins so I suppose you can make a half recipe.  Don't forget the struesel topping or the glaze. They are both important to the taste & texture of these little gems.

So good! Great with a nice hot steamy latte or cold class of milk.  I used half cake flour & half all purpose but I'm sure it would work with all of one or the other.

Lemon Crumb Muffins


3 sticks butter, melted (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 cups granulated sugar
2 cups sour cream
6 cups flour (I used 1/2 cake flour & 1/2 all purpose)
8 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 T. Lemon Juice
1 teaspoon salt
Zest from 5 fresh lemons


Sift all dry ingredients together into a very large bowl. Grate the rind of 5 lemons, set the lemons aside. Whisk eggs and add sour cream, melted butter, oil, lemon juice, vanilla extract & lemon extract; whisk until smooth. Fold in the lemon zest. Fold all wet ingredients into the dry. Blend well.

Streusel

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 stick butter, softenend


Mix sugar and flour together. Add butter. Work into dry ingredients until crumbly. (I did this part in a food processor)


Lemon Glaze


1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

Stir together until all of the sugar is dissolved. (I put the mixture in a Pyrex measuring cup and microwaved for 30 seconds. Sugar disolved completely)





Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray muffin tins and fill with batter. Top each muffin with 1 tablespoon streusel and bake for 18 to 20 minutes. (My muffins were huge so I had to bake for longer but I kept checking with a toothpick until moist crumbs were evident)

Remove muffins from oven. After 10 minutes or so, pop them out of the muffin tins.  Place on a rack with a piece of parchment or wax paper or even foil underneath to catch the dripping glaze.  Glaze the top of each muffin with a bit of glaze.  (I ended up making another batch of the glaze because I wanted to make sure that each muffin got a big spoonful)

Chocolate chocolate chip zucchini muffins

Here is a good way to use up those extra zucchini.  This is a recipe from the King Arthur Flour website.  It's supposed to be a 13x9 inch cake but I made it into muffins and it worked wonderfully.  I used a small amount of the King Arthur Flour black cocoa powder, so my muffins were a deep chocolate.  Not too sweet and deliciously moist.  Shredded zucchini is usually visible in my bread or muffins but this time the zucchini could not be seen at all (a good way to hide the veggie!).  I passed these huge muffins off at work as healthy breakfast fare but in reality, they are basically just a big piece of unadorned chocolate cake.  The big Guittard milk chocolate chips that I added to the top before baking were a nice addition. They added some texture.  I like the fact that this recipe uses oil AND butter.  The oil adds incredible moistness and the butter adds wonderful flavor.  This recipe makes perfect muffins but would also work as a quick bread or a cake.  Chocolate icing would be great on it too...or maybe cream cheese icing!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

from King Arthur Flour



1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) butter


1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) vegetable oil

1 3/4 cups (12 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup (4 ounces) sour cream, buttermilk, or yogurt

2 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

3/4 cup (2 1/4 ounce) Dutch-process cocoa

2 teaspoons espresso powder, optional but tasty

2 cups shredded zucchini (about one 10" zucchini, about 12 ounces)

1/2 cup (3 ounces) chocolate chips




Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lighlty grease a 9" x 13" pan.



In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Beat in the eggs.



Stir in the sour cream, buttermilk, or yogurt alternately with the flour. Then add the cocoa and espresso powder, mixing till smooth. Finally, fold in the zucchini and 1/2 cup chocolate chips.


Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. top befoto the t(I added milk chocolate chips to the top before baking) Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, till the top springs back lightly when touched, and it seems set.

Lemon Crunch Muffins

Lovely lemony crunchy sugary muffins! These turned out beautifully and I enjoyed one of these for my dinner tonight. I cut it in half and slathered one side with raspberry jam. So delicious! The only bad thing about these is that when I flipped them out of the pan, a lot of the sugary topping fell off the muffins. Bummer. But besides that, they were a delicious muffin with a strong lemon flavor. Not tart, just lemony. I thought for a moment about adding some shredded coconut in the topping ingredients. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Lemon/coconut is a great combo. But then nobody in my family would eat them so I left the coconut out.

These lemon muffins would be a wonderful contribution to a summer brunch or a picnic basket. They are delicious by themselves but the addition of jam or even a creamy lemon curd really brings them over the top! Be careful not to overbake these. Don't wait until a DRY toothpick emerges from the center of the baked muffin. Very moist crumbs should appear.

I absolutely love my crown muffin pan. Doesn't it give the muffins a nice big round cap on top? The muffins are HUGE. I recently saw a crown muffin pan at City Kitchens downtown Seattle that makes standard size crown muffins rather than the jumbo. I think I will invest in that soon.

I guess I could have been more careful in removing my muffins from the pans. I could have gently lifted each one out and placed it nicely on the rack. But I took the easy way out - I flipped the entire pan over in 1 big swoop and all 6 of the muffins fell out at once onto the parchment.

The sugary edges that fell off were so crunchy and sweet!

Lemon Crunch Muffins

4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 2 lemons (medium to large lemons)
Juice of 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups sour cream
4 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup vegetable oil


Crunchy lemon topping
1 stick cold butter cut into chunks
about 1/2 cup flour
about 2 cups granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon

Place all topping ingredients in a food processor and spin until powdery. No butter chunks should be visible. Set aside till you fill your muffins pans with batter.

To make the muffins:
400 degree oven
Prepare muffin tins - (I used no liners - just a nonstick BAKING spray. I got a perfect 12 jumbo crown muffins out of this recipe.)
Whisk the dry ingredients together, including the lemon zest, in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients, including the lemon juice.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir everything together. Don't worry about lumps - just DON'T overmix. ( I generally stir just till I see no remaining dry pockets of flour.)

Spoon batter in prepared muffin tins. (I filled mine about 3/4 full) Spoon crunchy lemon topping over each filled cup. (I put 2 heaping tablespoons on each one - the batter was not even visible underneath) Bake until toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out with moist crumbs attached - about 25 minutes. (I baked my muffins for 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees and then reduced the oven temp to 375 for the remainder of baking time)

Remove pans from oven and place on wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes before popping them out of the pan to cool completely.

Blueberry Blackberry Cream Muffins

Yeah! It's berry season! I love berries and I bought so many this past weekend. I cannot possibly eat them all so I had to find another use for them. This is my favorite blueberry muffin recipe so I used this recipe and added blackberries to the batter, along with the blueberries and I also added some oatmeal/brown sugar streusel. The results are amazing! I used my jumbo muffins tins that have crowns on them. I didn't even use paper liners but I sprayed the tins well and the muffins popped right out after baking. I baked these muffins on an upper rack and I put a double baking sheet underneath the muffin pans so the muffin bottoms would not get too brown. They turned out a perfect & even golden brown. This recipe includes a full 2 cups of sour cream. The first time I made them I thought that sounded like a lot of sour cream but it blends in beautifully helps create a nice moist muffin.

Blueberry Blackberry Cream Muffins
based on Blueberry Cream Muffins at allrecipes.com


Ingredients:

4 eggs 2 cups white sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 cups sour cream 2 cups blueberries

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2.	In large bowl beat eggs, gradually add sugar while beating. Continue beating while slowly pouring in oil. Stir in vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking soda.
3.	Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups. If using streusel, sprinkle on top of the batter before placing in the oven.
.	Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs. Brown Sugar/Oatmeal Streusel 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup brown sugar 4 tablespoons old fashion oats 2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp nutmeg 6 tablespoons cold butter