Yes my Sweetbites cooks, there are more blueberry posts coming your way.

Tom and the Mr. D decided to go blueberry picking yesterday and came back with EIGHT POUNDS OF BLUEBERRIES for me to work my magic with.

It was time to do same mass baking in order to make sure all EIGHT pounds of them would not go to waste.

The pitch started:

Me: “Ok, blueberry pie? Blueberry bread?”
Tom: “No, how about muffins?”
Me: “Ok, at least I don’t have to deal with pie dough”
Tom: “Well if you still want to make pie plus the muffins I’m not going to say no”
Me: “Muffins it is” (no sense in making it hard for me)

Next up was my favorite part, searching my cookbooks for that recipe that shouted MAKE ME!

Martha Stewart was a good start, but it did not call out to me.
Donna Hay sounded even better, but just reading the recipe I had a feeling they were going to be more like cake and less dense like a muffin should – scratch that.
I decided to do a quick search in FoodPornDaily and Foodgawker and there it was – a muffin with a streusel top – SOLD! Everyone pointed to a recipe from Nick Malgieri: Blueberry Crumb Muffins from his book The Modern Baker.

The book came out of my bookshelf, the recipe was found, marked and I got the show on the road.

I started with making the crumb topping: melted butter mixed with brown sugar, then flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. A note on this: I crumbled the topping on the muffins, not quite sure how much to use, since Tom loves anything that has cinnamon on itI went heavy handed, sprinkling maybe two tablespoon on each muffin? I still had a ton of topping leftover; I mean, at least two-thirds of the batch. I would definitely halve the topping recipe next time.

The mixing of batter was straightforward - into the mixer went softened unsalted butter, sugar, and light brown sugar; then the eggs; and finally milk and the flour mixture. The flour mixture included freshly grated nutmeg, which I love and if I could I would put it into everything, I would. It’s a great spice.

I also love the next step, which was adding the blueberries and running the mixer for a few seconds to “crush some of the berries” - genius!

And here is my second tip for this recipe. Nick says the recipe yields twelve standard sized muffins. I want to see his muffin pan stat! Because once I filled my pan, I had quite a bit of batter left over. Enough to make an additional 6 muffins.
More for Tom to eat.

The feedback was overwhelming. Tom gobbled them up - 3 right off the bat and with a mouth full he declared them the best muffin EVER. I took some to my chicas last night and afterwards our conversation went something like this via Facebook when I posted a teaser picture of them:

It pretty much sums up that I have found our go-to blueberry muffin recipe at casa CP.

BLUEBERRY CRUMB MUFFIN

from The Modern Baker

CRUMB TOPPING

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
6 tablespoon unsalted butter
⅓ cup light brown sugar

MUFFIN BATTER

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
8 tablespoon unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
¾ cup sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup milk
1 pint (2 cups) blueberries, rinsed, drained, and picked over

Instructions

Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375° F. Line a standard muffin pan with paper liners.
For the crumb topping, combine the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl and stir well to mix. Melt the butter in a small pan. Remove from the heat and add the brown sugar to the pan of melted butter and use a small heatproof spatula to stir them together. Scrape the butter and sugar mixture into the flour mixture, stirring it until the flour is evenly moistened. Set aside while preparing the batter.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl and stir well to mix.
Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed for about 1 minute, or until well mixed and a little lightened in color. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating smooth after each addition.
Decrease the mixer speed to low and beat in 1/2 the flour mixture. Stop the mixer and use a large rubber spatula to scrape down the bowl and beater.
On low speed, beat in the milk. After the batter has absorbed the milk, beat in the remaining flour mixture. Stop and scrape down the bowl and beater again.
Add the blueberries to the bowl and beat them into the batter on lowest speed for no more than 2-3 seconds, to crush some of the berries slightly.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a large rubber spatula to give a final mixing to the batter.
Divide the batter evenly among the cavities in the muffin pan. Break the crumb topping into small crumbs with your fingertips and scatter over the top of each muffin. Bake the muffins until they are well risen, feel firm to the touch, and the topping is golden, about 30 minutes. Cool the muffins in the pan on a rack.

Yes, they tastes as good as they look.