There has been a lot of good food happening in this house lately. I feel like we always eat pretty well, but we’ve really been knocking it out of the park in recent weeks. There was one minor chicken and kale casserole catastrophe that was essentially a pile of dry ricotta cheese (but a big thanks goes out to Amanda and Laura for suffering through it without complaint), but otherwise, we’ve had a lot of hits. Unfortunately, I never end up taking photos of our dinners because 1) we live in the dark, and 2) I feel bad when I insist on snapping pictures while Eric’s stomach grumbles.
But I’ll be sure to start keeping a better photographic record of our meals once it’s light outside during dinner time. Until then, let’s talk about breakfast.
I love breakfast. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t. And when I think about breakfast, I think about muffins. Blueberry muffins, to be exact. My life is a constant quest to make the perfect blueberry muffin. I will not go so far as to say that this is the perfect recipe (will we ever really find “the one”?), but I will say that I like it a lot. But I like this alot more. (For those of you who are outraged by my intentional misspelling of “a lot”, have no idea what I’m talking about, or just generally enjoy grammar humor, please go read this Hyperbole and a Half blog. I love it so much.)
I think we can all agree that the best part of any muffin is the crumble topping (that’s why they make muffin top pans, right?), and this crumble does not disappoint. I usually have a lot of trouble getting the butter distributed correctly in the dry ingredients, so my crumble ends up being some butter clumps and a cinnamon sugar mixture that just sinks into the muffin. Then I discovered that the wonderful, mighty food processor can make that crumble topping for me! Just drop your butter and your dry ingredients in the bowl and give it a few pulses. Oh, thank you, food processor. I’ll never have a not-so-crumbly crumble again!
Blueberry Muffins
adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book
Topping:
1/8 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon (feel free to use less if you are a normal person, not obsessed with cinnamon, like me)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Muffins:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup skim milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 16 muffin cups with with cute little liners (muffin liners are a baker’s best friend. No more obsessively trying to clean that muffin grime off the inside of the cup!).
To make the topping, combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until it forms a crumble.
To make the muffins, use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well.
In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 2 additions, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Mix until the batter is slightly lumpy. Fold in the blueberries.
Spoon the batter into muffin cups, sprinkling each with crumble topping. Bake 20-25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy your breakfast!
-Ally
Chad and Becca says
who knew green glasses turned milk blue! so cool!