For this recipe for Blueberry Muffins – simple and magnificent – we have to thank Zoë François of zoebakes.com.
I had been wandering around for a while, and this recipe remained in my semi-infinite “to do” catalogue, and only on a sunny September afternoon did I manage to get to work… and what can I say, they are MAGNIFICENT! Thank you lovely Zoe!!!
Ingredients for Muffins (x 12 units)
- 225 g of 00 flour
- 3.75 g of baking powder
- 1.8 g of baking soda
- 3.75 g of salt
- 86g of butter at room temperature
- 150g of granulated sugar
- 30g of cane sugar
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or a knife tip of the scraped seeds of a vanilla pod
- 1 whole egg at room temperature
- 1 egg white at room temperature
- 135g of plain or vanilla yogurt
- 150g of fresh blueberries, washed and dried (and 1 tablespoon of flour)
Topping ingredients:
- 56 g of 00 flour
- 110g of cane sugar
- a tip of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- a pinch of grated nutmeg
- 57g of butter at room temperature
Start by preparing the topping, mixing all the ingredients with your hands in a bowl and obtaining a crumbly mixture. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes or, if you have more time, in the fridge. It should solidify a little so that you can crumble it onto the muffins before cooking.
Turn the oven on to 175°C and prepare muffin molds with liners (or butter and flour them).
Start preparing the dough for the muffins. Start mixing the flour, salt, baking powder and sodium bicarbonate in a bowl and mix the powders well. In a fairly deep container, place the butter, sugar (both white and brown), the grated lemon zest and the vanilla and mix with a whisk until you obtain a soft mixture like an ointment (this step can also be done with the planetary mixer, with the leaf hook/K).
At this point add the egg and egg white to the mixture and beat at low speed, don’t worry if initially the mixture will seem a little loose, slowly all the egg will be absorbed by the mixture. Add half the flour and half the yogurt and mix until you obtain a smooth dough, then add the rest of the flour and the yogurt and mix the dough well, it should be smooth and without lumps.
Mix gently the blueberries, already washed and dried, with a spoonful of flour in a bowl and then delicately add them to the dough, mixing slowly with a spatula. The flour is used to prevent the blueberries from “falling” to the bottom.
Fill the molds 2/3 full and at this point take the topping out of the fridge and crumble it with your hands onto the muffins; as it cooks, it will give a touch of “crunchiness” to your sweets.
Bake for 15-20 minutes at 160°C until they are lightly brown on the surface. Remove from the oven and let them cool before eating (they are delicious while still warm!).
And here are some top-notch BlueBerry Muffins. At the first taste they will win you over with their softness, crunchiness and the freshness of the blueberries. Like we did before… you really don’t know!
