Enjoying the Blues (Muffins not Music)

Breakfast at the Frog & PenguINN usually includes fruit, several varieties blended into a smoothie (orange juice, banana, yogurt shown) or in Grenville's special weekend pancakes. And, blueberries are a favorite food group here. When the local grocery store had ones grown in Hammonton, NJ (nicknamed the blueberry capital) last week, we stocked up. We have a fondness for ones grown in our home state, where the blueberry was recently named  the NJ state fruit — honest folks, we didn’t make this one up.

The U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council blueberry has facts and blueberry recipes. We bought several cartons to enjoy now and to freeze for later use.

The recent HOT weather has put our oven out of service the past couple of weeks. Since there’s no other way to make blueberry muffins, we turned on all the ceiling fans and the kitchen exhaust fan, and got ready to bake . . .

Crumb-Topped Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are large with a sugary-cinnamon crumb topping. Want larger? Just double the recipe and fill the muffin cups to the top edge for a jumbo-size bakery muffin.

• 1-1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 Cup white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1/3 Cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 Cup milk
• 1+ Cup fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping

• 1/2 Cup white sugar or brown sugar *
• 1/3 Cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 Cup butter, cubed
• 1-1/2 tsps ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1-1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1-1/2 tsps cinnamon. Mix with fork and sprinkle over top of muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in preheated oven OR until done. (Mine took closer to 30 minutes to test done.)

* Tried subbing brown sugar TODAY for the crumb topping, but it didn’t work, browning very badly, so back to using white the next time. Added a 1/2 tsp of vanilla which did turn out well.

Yes, there will be a next time.

We enjoy Blues music as well; there’s a bunch of stations that offer  FREE online listening, including Live365, tunein, Slacker and Pandora.