Tory and I grew up on wild blueberries. Late July or early August we’d head out into the woods – to a secret spot that only my mom and her closest friends would share – and pick ice-cream buckets full of blueberries. Well Mom would pick by the ice-cream bucket and Tory and I would do our best to contribute. If memory serves right, me more than Tory. The thing about wild blueberries is they are fickle, not enough rain early enough in the season and the berries don’t get plump and not enough heat at the right time later in the season and they don’t ripen so you never know if you’re going to get blueberries the next year. AND it’s a lot of work, the plants up in Northeastern MN are low to the ground so you’re crouching the whole time. Because of that my mom used to hoard blueberries. We never made things like blueberry pie because it used too many berries. But blueberry crescent rolls, blueberry pancakes, and blueberry muffins often graced our table. Those were all great recipes to allow us to stretch the blueberries as long as we could.
This blueberry muffin recipe comes from my mom’s trusty Betty Crocker cookbook. You can tell we’ve made it a lot because only one or two of the punched holes are still intact on the page. The muffins are simple and easy and really remind me of my childhood. I love serving them with big family meals, and they go great on my Easter table. Although it’s not blueberry season there is something fresh and springy about them to me.
Here’s what you need:
Start by mixing together your wet ingredients – this will be milk, vegetable oil and an egg. My mom used to use what I think is now an antique egg beater. She even bought me one at a garage sale when I moved into my first apartment and I still use it for muffins (In fact, I think that’s about ALL I use it for). Here’s a modern take
Whisk together your dry ingredients – flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet.
Gently mix it until the flour is not quite combined. Just like pancake batter you don’t want to overmix muffin batter or the muffins will be tough. You need to stop when you can still see a bit of flour because we’ll mix again to add the blueberries.
Pour the blueberries into the batter. If you are using frozen wild blueberries – don’t thaw them, the juice will turn the batter bluish purple. Which I guess would be a cute pastel for Easter.
Gently mix just until combined.
Divide evenly into 12 muffin cups. You can either grease the bottom of the muffin pan or use paper muffin baking cups. I like baking cups because I can buy cute themed cups – the ones I’m using today have a cute Easter theme to them.
Now this is my favorite part. The Betty Croker Cookbook wants you to add a streusel topping and while I LOVE streusel topping normally, that’s not what my mom used to do so that’s not what I do. You’re going to sprinkle on just a little bit of sugar to the top of each muffin. This will add just a gentle sweetness and crunch to the top.
Once you’ve sugared all the blueberry muffins they are ready to go into the oven.
Pop them into a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until just beginning to turn golden brown. This will be closer to 25 if you started with frozen blueberries – maybe a few minutes more depending on your oven.
Remove from the pan and transfer to wire racks (if you don’t use baking cups you want to let them sit in the pan for about 5 minutes first).
I prefer to serve these warm, and eat them cut in half (down the top not through the equator) with a pat of butter on each side. I love how the butter melts into the still warm blueberry muffin.
Enjoy!
- ¾ c milk
- ¼ c vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 2 c flour
- ½ c sugar
- 2 t baking powder
- ½ t salt
- 1 c wild blueberries (frozen are ok)
- Sugar for topping
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 12 muffin cups with paper baking cups, or grease the bottoms of each cup.
- Beat milk, oil, and egg in a bowl with whish or egg beater.
- Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Gently fold into wet ingredients, leaving some streaks of flour.
- Fold in the blueberries, batter may still be a little lumpy.
- Divide evenly among muffin cups.
- Sprinkle each muffin with about a ½ teaspoon of sugar.
- Bake 20-25 minutes until just turning golden brown.
- Remove from pan and transfer to wire cooling racks. If not using baking cups, cool in pan for 5 minuntes first.
- Serve warm with butter.
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