Blueberry Streusel Muffins

This recipe creates some of the moistest muffins I've ever had. The original recipe doesn't include streusel but since I love streusel, I experimented with it and love the end result.

A few notes:

1. I crack all my eggs into a bowl, which makes adding eggs easier as I'm mixing. This is especially helpful if using a hand mixer.
2. Make sure the baking soda and powder are fresh. If they are more than 8 months old, you should throw them out and buy new.
3. Dusting the blueberries with flour before mixing will keep the blueberries from sinking.
4. Don't put more blueberries than what the recipe calls for. Too much blueberries will make mushy muffins.
5. Don't overfill the muffin liners because the muffins will expand quite a bit. Leave about 1/4" at the top for streusel.
6. The muffins need some time to set after cooling or else they will be almost too crumbly. I find that the muffins are best the day after.

Yield: ~24 regular sized muffins

Ingredients for muffins:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (12 Tbsp), room temperature
1 1/2 C sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 C (8 oz) sour cream
1/4 C milk
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour and a little to dust the blueberries
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 half-pints fresh blueberries, cleaned and stems removed
Confectioners' sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Ingredients for streusel:
1/4 C granulated sugar
1/3 C brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 stick (1/4 lb) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the streusel:
Combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter and combine. Add flour. Mix well and set aside.


For the muffins:
Line muffin pan with paper liners.

In the bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. The butter and sugar will get lighter in color, about 5 minutes. On low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, beating until each egg is incorporated. Add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk and mix.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed.

Dust the blueberries with some flour. I use a colander for this step. Put the blueberries in the colander, sprinkle with flour and toss around until blueberries are covered. Tap and shake the colander to remove excess flour. Fold the blueberries into the batter with a spatula

Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pans, leaving about 1/4" below the top. Crumble the streusel topping evenly over the batter. (I like to pack a lot of streusel on top.) Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center. Completely cool on racks.

If you like your muffins a bit sweeter, you can dust a light layer of Confectioner's sugar on top of the muffins.

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Quinoa Raisin Muffins

I've been watching a lot of Martha Stewart Living lately. About a week or so ago, she did a segment on quinoa muffins and it looked really good. So off to the store we went over the weekend and I picked up some quinoa. I actually got 2 kinds, a white and a black quinoa. Supposedly, black quinoa is nuttier in flavor. I opted to use the white since that's the version Martha used.

Here's what the quinoa looked like after cooking.
Below is Martha's recipe with my modifications added.

Ingredients:

1 C quinoa, rinsed
1/4 C vegetable oil (I used canola oil), plus more for pan
2 C all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
3/4 C packed dark-brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 C raisin (I added about 3/4 C)
3/4 C whole milk
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 C water to boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11-13 minutes.

Meanwhile, brush a standard 12-cup muffin pan with oil (I used 24-mini cup muffin pans), dust with flour, tapping out excess. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt raisins, and 2 C cooked quinoa; reserve any leftover quinoa for another use (we added this to some leftover pasta fazool).

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined; divide batter among prepared muffin cups. (I filled mine up just to the rim--had enough for 2 batches, total of 48 little muffins.)

Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. (It took about 17 minutes in the mini pans.) Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 5 days.

A note on cooling muffins in the pan for 5 minutes. I only

cooled for about 3 minutes in the pan since I noticed that the bottom of muffins from the first pan was starting to get a little moist from condensation.

As far as taste, it was really good. Better than I had anticipated. Maybe it's because I wasn't sure what the quinoa would taste like baked but it gave the muffins a really nice nutty flavor. For me, this is good because I can get the nutty flavor without the nuts because I usually don't like nuts in my dishes. Why? I don't know, just one of those odd eating ticks, I guess. I think it's really because some nuts get soggy or chewy when cooked in dishes. And I prefer a crunchy bite when eating nuts. The subtle sweetness was just perfect for a breakfast muffin. Or even a little snack when you just want a little something.

There's a lot of recipes for quinoa. Martha has one for a quinoa and corn salad that I like to try, as well as Kirk's salad at mmm-yoso!! This is good because I have 1 1/2 bags of quinoa to make.

Have a wonderful week. Stay dry and eat well.

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