A few years back, it was a dream to make blueberry muffins with fresh blueberries in Kolkata. While we were in Pune, we used to get fresh blueberries in season. Strawberries are always available in season throughout the country. In Kolkata however, it is only recently that we are seeing fresh blueberries in the supermarkets. I have looked longingly at the beautiful fresh blueberry pictures over the years. And I have been wanting to make blueberry muffin with the fresh ones. The frozen ones are also quite a new entrant in the market. It was always canned blueberry pie filling that everyone has been using for cheesecakes and muffins.
You can make this flavoured yogurt at home with fresh blueberries.
How do you make Blueberry muffins throughout the year?
You can bake blueberry muffins with fresh or frozen blueberries using the same recipe. But how do you do that when fresh blueberries are seasonal and you don’t always get frozen blueberries in the supermarket. This year, I have done the same thing that I do with strawberries every year. I wash the berries and dry them with a paper towel. I also remove all stems and then pack them in a Tupperware or ziplock bags and freeze them for rest of the year. You can also seal them off in the freezer in batches. Try the same thing with strawberries, green peas or any other seasonal vegetable.
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Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns and a wonderful story
The best recipe for blueberry muffins
I have tried out several recipes for muffins in general. There are some with oil and some with butter. There are some with ghee too. However, I prefer the ones with butter and I cannot care if it is less healthy or not. The flavour and texture from using butter is different. Only for certain chocolate based recipes, I use oil. This is a tried and tested muffin recipe and you can use any other flavour instead of blueberry. You can also use strawberry jam, orange marmalade or raspberry jam for making these muffins.
Ingredients required for these muffins
The standard ingredients of eggs, butter, caster sugar, all purpose flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, milk and fresh blueberries are required. You would need a muffin tray with cupcake liners for baking this. A little bit of demerara sugar is required to top the muffins. This is optional and this just gives a top a little caramelised look. I had picked this up from one of the Donna Hay shows (don’t remember which one though).
I haven’t tried but I reckon we can use fresh blueberries in this recipe of Hot Cross Buns as well.
The Process
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. The butter should be at room temperature or else you will not be able to cream it properly. Then you add the eggs one at a time (standard procedure) and whisk till the eggs have incorporated thoroughly. At this point, sometimes the batter looks curdled. But don’t worry about it. Once you add flour and baking powder to this, the batter becomes smooth. Since it is quite a thick batter, you need to add milk to loosen it up a bit. You could add the vanilla to the eggs or at this point and then add the washed and dried blueberries to the batter. Using a spatula, fold into the cake mix.
You need cupcake liners for blueberry muffins. Sometimes, the berries stick to the sides or the bottom and then they burn. So, best is to use the cupcake liners. It also saves you from the hassle of greasing and dusting the cupcake moulds. Pour the cake mix into the moulds in equal quantities. It should make about 12 standard sized muffins. Finally sprinkle the demerara sugar on top of the batter and pop the tray into the oven for baking. Baking time varies from oven to oven but it would be approximately 30 minutes at 180 degree C.
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Serving and storing suggestions
Once the muffins have cooled down, you can serve immediately. You can store them in an airtight container for 3 days (in a humid place like Kolkata) and then transfer to the refrigerator. Warm in the microwave before serving. You can also freeze the muffins for two months. In that case, you have to thaw them in room temperature for 4 hours and then re heat in the microwave before eating.
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The Best Blueberry Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin tray with 12 cups
- Oven
- Electric hand mixer or a stand mixer
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 cup caster sugar also known as superfine sugar
- 2 nos eggs at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup milk at room temp
- 2 cups fresh blueberries
- 2 tbsp demerara sugar
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. The butter should be at room temperature or else you will not be able to cream it properly.
- Then you add the eggs one at a time (standard procedure) and whisk till the eggs have incorporated thoroughly.
- At this point, sometimes the batter looks curdled. But don’t worry about it. Add the vanilla extract and give it one whisk.
- In another bowl, sieve in flour, salt and baking powder.
- Now add the flour mixture to the batter along with the milk alternately. Basically, the batter is very thick and you need to add milk to loosen it up. So add a little flour and then add milk. Fold everything with a spatula.
- Wash the blueberries and pat them dry. Add the blueberries to the cake batter and again fold into the batter using a spatula. Do not over work the batter or else the gluten activates too much.
- In a cup cake tray, place 12 muffin or cup cake liners.
- Using a round shaped spoon or an ice cream scoop, pour the batter equally into the cup cake liners.
- Pop the tray into a pre heated oven at 180 degree c for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer pricked in the centre comes out clean.
- Once done, take the tray out of the oven and let it cool down. Once a little cool, slide the cup cakes on a wire rack to cool completely before serving.
- You can store blueberry muffins in an air tight container for upto 3 days. After that transfer to the refrigerator. Heat in the microwave before serving.
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