Blueberry Love Muffins

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Dang. It is cold. At least it is cold here in my own little corner of Amish country. When I woke this morning my outdoor thermometer was shivering. I used what little brain power I have available prior to quaffing a pot of Irish Breakfast Tea to decide that firing up the oven to bake would be a very, very good idea. Courtesy of the forward thinking I had done two days previously, I had blueberry muffin batter waiting for me in the fridge so I didn’t have to measure or do anything requiring precision of thought or movement. I love muffins.

This blueberry muffin recipe comes courtesy of the King Arthur Flour website but I learned about it from a very special young friend; Abigail Santora. Abby is the daughter of my dear friend, Alison. Alison and I go way back. So far back that at our ages it might be indecent to mention the number of years of friendship we have under our belts. Abby has become quite the cook lately. The last time we stayed over at their house, Abby whipped up a beautiful batch of these muffins in under 20 minutes for the whole crew.

The key to the speed here is that you prepare the muffin batter ahead of time. It can store in the chill-chest for up to a week. That means that you folks out there who, unlike myself, don’t have to make at least 1 dozen muffins per meal can bake just as many as you need at one time. (Hey Melissa! That’s you… wink wink!)  Just roll out of bed and into your fluffy bunny slippers, itch your head a bit, wander into the kitchen and preheat the oven to 375°F, throw some liners in your muffin tin, scoop, sprinkle with sugar and bake. Can you feel the love?

Make Ahead Blueberry Love Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (9.5 oz.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (or 4 TB or 4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar (5.25 oz) or vanilla sugar (even yummier!)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (4 oz.)
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (7.5 oz)
• turbinado or coarse sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Line a tray with silicone muffin cups (or line a muffin tin with papers and spray them with non-stick cooking spray.)

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in one egg at a time, taking care to fully incorporate each egg before moving on. Add in the vanilla and sour cream or yogurt and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients and mix just until the batter is smooth. This is a very thick batter, so please don’t thin it out! Fold in the blueberries by hand. This is where frozen blueberries are much simpler!

At this point you can either tightly cover the batter or move right on to baking… If you’re refrigerating the batter my direction to you to preheat the oven and prepare all those muffin cups was pointless. Sorry about that.

If you choose to hold on to the batter the cooking is just the same from this point on in the proceedings.

Scoop a heaping 1/4 cup of batter into each muffin cup and sprinkle generously with turbinado or coarse sugar.

Bake for 18-24 minutes or until they’re a lovely golden brown and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Mmmmm. Love Muffins. Now that’s starting the day right!

And if any of you, like me, have a child or two or three who refuse to eat anything blue or fruit, these muffins cook up beautifully sans blueberries, too!

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