Blueberry Muffins!

In my Menu Planning Monday post this week, I said that blueberry muffins were an option for breakfast one day this weekend.  Well, I decided today was the day!

The from-scratch recipe I found was called "To Die for Blueberry Muffins".  I don't know if I would take a bullet for these breakfast treats, but they were sure worth the time and effort of NOT buying a premixed box!  

As always, the VERY first step is to start preheating the oven.  That way by the time you're actually ready to bake, it has reached the desired temperature and had a chance to sit there for awhile.  For this recipe, the oven needs to be at 400 degrees.

Now, to get together the ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg (unbeaten)
• milk (I used fat free)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (fresh blueberries make ALL the difference!)

The first step is to measure out the dry ingredients--the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.  Combine these thoroughly in a mixing bowl.  Make sure to keep your measuring cups--you'll need them for the crumble mix!

At this point, normally I would start measuring out exact amounts of the liquid ingredients, but this recipe had an interesting approach to this step using a 1 cup measuring cup.  First, I measured the 1/3 cup of vegetable oil into the cup.  Next I added the egg (unbeaten) and then filled the rest of the 1 cup up with milk.

Once that's done, pour the contents of the liquid measuring cup into the combined dry ingredients.  Mix everything together thoroughly, until its a smooth as  you can make it.  I always end up with one or two lumps in mine, but that's ok--it's never hurt the taste!

Next measure out 1 cup of fresh blueberries.  I made mine a generous cup because I love blueberries!  Once they are measured out, pour them into the batter.

Now you  need to fold them into the batter.  As I learned the hard way in a past baking experiment, folding is NOT the same as stirring in.  When you stir fresh fruit into a mix, you can actually end up bruising or smashing the fruit, which has an adverse affect on the final product.  So, to fold the blueberries in, scoop your mixing spoon deep into the batter.  Then rotate the spoon upside down so that the batter with the blueberries that was on top of the spoon is now underneath.  Repeat this process until all of the blueberries have been folded into the batter and are spread evenly throughout.

Now the batter is ready.  Make sure to grease the muffin pan.  I make sure to grease all around the insides of the muffin holes and around the top of the pan as well--that way when the muffins rise up over the edges they don't stick.

Once that's done, start spooning the batter into the muffin pan.  I use a 1/3 cup measuring cup.  This recipe is supposed to make big muffins, so go ahead and fill the muffin holes up to the top.

Now its time to make the crumble mixture!  Yum!!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Put all of these together in a bowl and then, according to the recipe, mix them together with a fork.  Now, the cubed butter part seemed to me to be more trouble than it was worth, so I went ahead and melted it in the microwave.  I also mixed with a whisk instead of a fork.  Now, this probably resulted in my crumble mixture being less crumbly than the recipe's, but it was quicker and turned out tasting just a good!

Once the crumble mixture is all mixed, sprinkle it on top of the muffin dough.  With my crumble mixture, since it was more damp than crumbly, I crumbled when I could and then pinched off small amounts and gently placed them on the muffin mixed, pushing down ever so slightly so that when the muffin batter baked, the crumble would bake into the batter.

Finally, it's time to put the muffins in the 400 degree oven!  Bake them for 20-25 minutes (it took 25 in mine).

Once the time has past, make sure you let the muffins cool for a bit before trying  to remove them.  I forgot for my first muffin and it sorta fell apart.  But the other 5 were perfect and the crumble mixture was delicious.

Bryan and I each ended up eating two.  I had milk with mine, and hubby had orange juice with his.  And we still have two left over!

This recipe is wonderful, and something I will definitely bake again!