Blueberry Crumb Muffins

When life hands you blueberries, make muffins.  Isn’t that how the old saying goes?  It isn’t?  Well, it should.

Some mornings just call for muffins, and this was one of those mornings.  I had a pint of beautiful berries in my fridge that was staring at me every time I opened the door.  Usually, I throw some berries on my yogurt in the morning and call it a day, but this morning I didn’t want yogurt.  I wanted a buttery, crumb topped muffin bursting with fresh berries.

So, I made some.

I started by zesting and juicing an orange, and getting the rest of my wet ingredients together.  Into the bowl went some milk, eggs, oil, the juice, and the zest.

After that bit was mixed together, I got my dry ingredients together in another bowl.  This recipe calls for bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, which actually kind of confused me at first.  Bread flour has a higher gluten content than all-purpose flour, so it’s good for chewy breads, pizza dough and the like.  I don’t ever recall seeing a muffin recipe that called for bread flour before.  Honestly, I was curious as to whether or not I was going to end up with blueberry hockey pucks instead of muffins, but I followed the recipe because I happened to have bread flour on hand.  I’m going to go out on a limb, though, and say that you could substitute all-purpose flour for the bread flour and still end up with a perfectly delicious muffin.

Once my wet and dry ingredients were stirred together, I gently folded in my blueberries.

After the berries were lounging in the batter, I scooped it up and into my muffin pan.  The recipe said that it made ten muffins.  I was able to get twelve out of it.

After the muffin tin was filled, I quickly threw together a buttery streusel topping and sprinkled it all over the tops of the muffins.

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Once the muffins were topped, I popped the pan into the oven for ten minutes.  Then, I lowered the heat a bit and baked them for fifteen minutes more until they were beautifully golden on top.

The kitchen smelled buttery and sweet, much better than the odor my morning yogurt usually gives off, and we were treated to wonderfully yummy way to start the day. I’m quite happy to report that the bread flour didn’t result in blueberry hockey pucks!  The muffins were moist and perfectly fluffy, the berries were delicious, and that orange zest gave the muffins just a bit of summery tang.   I should really do this more often!

BLUEBERRY CRUMB MUFFINS

Adapted from Sarabeth’s Bakery