In my early years in Italy – as a student in Bologna and then a college grad in Rome – I touted a nearly hallowed reputation among my Italian friends as the girl who could give them the American foods they had always wanted to try, the ones that they had seen in films or on TV or at Starbucks abroad but had both intrigued them and eluded them in their home country. With my baking and cooking skills, I revealed the magic of everything from s’mores (mixed reviews) to pancakes (a hit) to cheesecake (mind-blowing) to my amici, but in all this, no recipe matched the praise and popularity of the simple American muffin. I theorize that perhaps it was their ability to nicely accompany a cappuccino, but for whatever reason, muffins were the most beloved item in my repertoire, my piece de resistance, my signature. As I adjusted to life in Italy, studied for exams, and worked my first job, I baked tins up on tins of everything from chocolate chip to Nutella to blueberry muffins, to the delight of my Italian friends.
If you have a very good memory -- or if you’ve recently been browsing the archives -- you may be a tad confused about the subject of today’s post; you just may remember that there’s already a recipe for blueberry muffins on this blog, one of my earrrrrliest blog posts shared all the way back in 2015. It was the recipe for the legendary muffins I mentioned above, the ones I’d made on repeat to rave reviews, muffins that were delicious and foolproof, and therefore merited a spot on the blog. After all, what more could you want in a recipe?
A little bit more, it turns out.
What I’m trying to say is: there is a new blueberry muffin recipe in my life.
We’ll call this the blueberry muffin recipe of my 30s rather than my teens and 20s, shall we? You see: while there was nothing wrong with my previously favored recipe, my years of reading, experimenting, baking, and blogging, led me to a recipe for muffins that are, well, a bit smarter, more mature, ones that have quickly usurped the blueberry muffin throne and become my new go-to muffin. In comparison to Blueberry Muffin Recipe I, this recipe makes muffins that are less sweet and more blueberry-y; they call for whole wheat flour, yogurt, and lemon zest, turning out muffins that are slightly more complex in flavor and a bit more virtuous; they’re more efficient, too, in that they do not require softened butter, which either means leaving your butter out of the fridge for a while, i.e advanced planning (ugh) or using a microwave to speed up the process, a treacherous task where you toe the line between perfectly softened and completely melted butter (we’ve all been there.) As a result, no softening of butter means no beating in sugar means no need for electric beaters you’ll have to dig out: Blueberry Muffin Recipe II only asks that you have a whisk, or heck, even just a wooden spoon.
Ease and modifications aside, these Blueberry Muffins are my new ideal of a breakfast treat; they’re packed to the brim with blueberries – making for jammy, sweet-tart, impossibly blueberry splendor – are soft and tender and mildly lemony, and excellent warm out of the oven to accompany a cappuccino but also just as good eaten as a snack during your third Zoom meeting of the day (camera off, of course).
Go-to muffin circa 2015 and go-to muffin circa 2020 have one thing in common, though, besides blueberries and being delicious: these muffins were also a hit with my Italian friends, with one savoring her first before unabashedly requesting -- her hand already on the Tupperware -- a second for later. Proof that some things, including the appeal for blueberry muffins, never change.
Thought that has occurred to me as I write this post: are cupcakes simply gaudy muffins, or are muffins pared down cupcakes? Hmm.
A couple of notes: The recipe as written below calls for lemon zest, but I’ve also switched up the flavour of the muffin and replaced the lemon for cinnamon (eyeball it). It also calls for 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, but I like using whole wheat in there too; if you don’t have whole wheat, just use all-purpose for the total amount. Finally, I added in a little vanilla extract (a baked good just doesn’t seem right without it) but the recipe as written doesn’t call for it, so if you don’t have it, leave it out. If you don’t have vanilla extract, I’ve also found that maple syrup makes a perfect substitute, by the way.
Looking for other muffin recipes? I’ve got these Orange Poppyseed muffins, these Pumpkin muffins, these Cornbread muffins, these Apple Cinnamon muffins, Blueberry Muffins part 1, and these Banana Nutella Muffins.
BLUEBERRY MUFFINS II
Makes 9 muffins. Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
Ingredients:
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
Finely grated zest from 1/2 a lemon, or a dash of cinnamon (notes above)*
3/4 cup (180 grams) plain,full-fat yogurt
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (65 grams) whole wheat flour
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups (215 to 255 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (no need to defrost)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
Heat oven to 375°F (190 degrees Celsius). Grease a 9-cup muffin tin and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, sugar, zest, yogurt and egg until smooth. Next, whisk in the baking powder, baking soda and salt until fully combined, then lightly fold in the flour and berries. Batter will be very thick, like a cookie dough.
Divide between prepared muffin cups and bake the muffins for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (except for blueberry goo). Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes then the rest of the way on a rack.
