Lemon Sugar Blueberry Muffins

An easy, delicious muffins recipe from Cook's Illustrated, these Lemon Sugar Blueberry Muffins come together quickly and always bring rave reviews!

My daughter and her three sweet girls - Annie, Ellie and Lilly arrived from their home in London on Tuesday.

We could hardly wait till they got here and are LOVING having them with us. The two older girls always want to help Grammy (me) in the kitchen and we've been whipping up all kinds of special treats during this visit.

They take their jobs quite seriously.

Mmm...but then again, do you think perhaps there are a few shenanigans up their sleeves??? 🙂

And number 3 - well, she just keeps us entertained while we cook!

I had some beautiful fresh blueberries in the fridge so we decided to make Blueberry Muffins with Lemon/Sugar Topping this morning. I had been wanting to try this delicious sounding recipe from Cook's Illustrated for some time now.

This recipe intrigued me because unlike most blueberry muffin recipes it calls for making a simple blueberry puree by simmering a cup of the berries with a bit of sugar. The rest of the berries are added to the batter and the puree is swirled over the top of the muffins just before baking. A shower of lemon zest and sugar tops them off and into the oven they go!

I want to share one of my favorite baking secrets today; how to have lovely looking muffins even when the tops spill over the edges of the muffin cups making them look like a pitiful mess! Some muffins come out of the oven with rounded perfect tops but then there are those who go into overtime and not only rise up but also out ending up looking like mushrooms! I call this overzealousness on the part of the muffins "getting too big for their britches" - and I know how to put them right back in their place!

This is how the little trick works - the minute the muffins emerge from the oven, take a table knife or a small plastic scraping tool (see picture below) and, going around the edges, push the unruly tops gently back into the muffin cups. This has to be done while the muffins are hot out of the oven (once they start to cool they will become quite set in their ways and won't budge when you try to coerce them into submission). If you work quickly while they are hot - the result will be perfectly rounded top muffins that look like they came from a bakery shop!

These muffins grew right out of their britches.

But this is how you make them tow the line!!

I'm coercing them into submission.

⅓ cup sugar
lemon zest , from l lemon

2 ½ cups blueberries
1 ¼ cups sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for puree
2 cups all purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly (½ stick)
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk (see note)
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. FOR THE TOPPING: Stir together sugar and lemon zest in small bowl until combined; set aside.

5. Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17 to 19 minutes, rotating muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated