Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Crumb Topping

If it's the end of the summer in New England, then it's the season for Maine blueberries! Boston Organics - which delivers organic fruit and veggies to my door - was offering a 5-lb box of fresh, organic Maine blueberries...and of course I couldn't resist. I love blueberries. However...what was I to do with so many blueberries?

To start, I made the most delicious blueberry muffins with a cinnamon crumb topping!

just add coffee for a delicious breakfast

a light and tender crumb but bursting with flavor

I adapted my blueberry muffins recipe from this Food & Wine recipe. Their recipe seemed a little bland for me, so I added spices and some citrus zest...and the muffins were flavorful and with a very tender crumb.

The recipe has two parts: the cinnamon crumb topping and the muffins themselves. Both recipes are below.

Cinnamon Crumb Topping
1 c all-purpose flour
3 T light brown sugar
2 T granulated sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t cinnamon
pinch salt
6 T unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl, mix well with a fork or small whisk. Add the melted butter and stir with a fork until the butter is mixed throughout and the topping forms small clumps. Set aside while you make the muffin batter.

mise en place for the cinnamon crumb topping

melted butter is added

and the topping is mixed until small clumps form

Blueberry Muffins
2 (to 2 1/2) c blueberries, rinsed and set aside to drain
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 1/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t freshly grated nutmeg
pinch cardamom (cardamom is very strong, so I recommend only using a pinch or no more than 1/8 t or you'll taste it too strongly in the finished muffins)
2 T citrus zest (I used grapefruit because that happened to be the only citrus fruit I had. I'd recommend using lemon or orange zest.)
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c firmly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted then added to the canola oil
3/4 c whole milk
1 t pure vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line (or butter well, if not using liners) 18 muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the white and brown sugars, and the citrus zest. Mix to combine. Add the eggs, and the canola oil and butter mixture. Mix well. Add in the milk and vanilla and whisk well (or use a rubber spatula) until everything is combined.

Add the dry ingredients to the sugar-egg-milk mixture and stir (use a large spoon) until just combined. Do NOT overmix and don't worry about the lumps (there will be lots of lumps...but seriously, don't worry at all). Overmixing will lead to tough and dense muffins. Finally, gently fold in the blueberries.

Using a large ice cream scooper or measuring cup, fill the 18 prepared cups. Fill each muffin cup to about 3/4 full; I used slightly more than 1/4 c of batter per muffin cup.

Spoon the cinnamon crumb topping evenly over the batter in each of the muffin cups. You don't want the topping to be in huge clumps, so break up the clumps with your fingers, if need be.

Bake for 15 minutes, then rotate your pans. Bake an additional 12-15 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with a few crumbs attached. Transfer the pans to a cooling rack for about 8 minutes. Then carefully remove each muffin and let cool completely on the cooling rack...although you may need to try one warm (just to be sure)!

The muffins are best the day they are made. However, I found that you can also freeze them in a plastic zipper baggie for about 1 week (that's as long as mine lasted!). Thaw overnight in the fridge and then let them return to room temperature before serving. Yum!

wow...5 lbs of blueberries!

hmmm...that is a LOT of berries! What was I thinking?

one of the changes I made to the original recipe was to use 1/2 canola oil and 1/2 butter

I also added some grapefruit zest

mixing the flour and spices

I added brown sugar for depth of flavor

and zest, which I thought would go well with blueberries

after the eggs and milk are added to the sugars, the dry ingredients are added
don't overmix the batter at this point!

...and don't mind the lumps! Look how lumpy my batter is. Trust me though, it won't matter.

fill with the batter and then add some of the crumb topping to each

golden brown fresh out of the oven...smells amazing

yippee...muffins for everyone!

Bye for now...
 

Baklava

I am an absolute baklava fanatic...and a bit of a baklava snob. I hate dry baklava and I hate artificial tasting baklava - you know, the kind that leaves a film on your tongue and is all grainy (I think when made with oil instead of butter)? Yuck.

So what was a budding young baker to do? Into the kitchen and learn to make it myself! Years ago I found a recipe and gave it a go and boy, oh boy, fresh baklava is just amazingly delicious. It's nutty (obviously!) and sweet - but not super sweet like in many restaurants - and the honey syrup has a light lemony flavor which seems to get lost when it's commercially produced. Sadly, I've lost that wonderful recipe from so many years ago (and also whatever skill I might have had with cutting the perfectly shaped piece - as you will see below) so I turned to the ever-handy google in search of a new recipe. I came across these 2 that looked pretty decent (from allrecipes and epicurious), and adapted them to better fit my tastes (and what happened to be in my pantry). If anyone wants my full recipe, leave me a comment and I'll email it to you.

mise en place (I used a combination of walnuts, pecans
and blanched almonds and lightly toasted them before grinding them)
my spice mixture includes cardamom and freshly ground nutmeg

lemon zest added to the ground nuts

I added lemon peel, cinnamon sticks and a vanilla bean to the syrup mixture

8 buttered filo layers go down as the bottom and top
(although next time I'll add about 5-7 more to both bottom/top)

a sprinkling of nuts then 2 more buttered filo, repeat until you run out of nuts

top with 8-15 more buttered filo layers and slice before baking
here you can see my insanely weird (and too large) slices

baked to a golden brown

pour the cooled honey-sugar-lemon syrup over the hot baklava

delicious!

it's calling my name...

the top and bottom layers were crispy and the middle, nut-filled layers were soft and chewy...YUM!

I originally made this baklava about a month ago and decided to make it again this morning. This time I got the slicing down perfectly! A few pictures from this morning...

ahhh...these pieces look much better than those above!

for this batch I used more nuts and more layers on the top and bottom so the slices are a bit taller

Bye for now...