baking history :: humble muffin {life}

I am trying like mad to get interesting, diverse foods on the table for breakfast ... for all of us. It's working sometimes. And in keeping with my desire to have our baked goods be actually, you know, baked here and not somewhere else, I decided to see how muffins might go over. We've never been big muffin eaters around here. In fact, I was never much of a muffin eater at all. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever made muffins for the people that live here with me now. This might explain how, when I first went to make these puppies (on National Blueberry Pancake Day, no less) and had everything assembled, I stumbled when I couldn't find my muffin tins. Luckily, I hadn't yet cracked an egg.

My neighbor Catherine came to the rescue, and the next day we were all systems go. Muffin time. I had plenty of cookbooks to scour through to find a good blueberry muffin recipe, but what I didn't have was time. Thank you, All Recipes! Quick internet searches can be hit or miss, and this one definitely hit. We had them for breakfast (or sometimes lunch, ahem), but I heard tell that those we returned to Catherine in her empty muffin tin were perhaps consumed with ice cream... However you have them, I'd venture to say they aren't so humble anymore.

From All Recipies To Die For Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry Batter
1.5 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk (or more)
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400º and line muffin tin with muffin liners. (You could skip the liners and grease your tins, but that never seems to work for me.) In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. In a one-cup measuring cup, add egg to 1/3 cup vegetable oil and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with the flour mixture and fold in the blueberries. Fill liners nearly to the top.

Cinnamon Crumble
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/5 teaspoons cinnamon

Combine all ingredients and mix with a fork (or your fingers, which, quite honestly, are easier), and crumble on top of blueberry batter before baking.

Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

The original recipe calls for 8 large muffins, but because of how our family works, I knew that 12 would work better for us. My liners weren't completely full, and I reduced the cooking time just a bit. Enjoy!