Bluberry Muffins with a Side of MPB Day!

Sewing meet ups are the best because of the other sewists! Where else could I talk about hand-worked buttonholes or finding the perfect sweater knit or the merits of hair canvas with people who get as giddy as me over it? Those of you who were there, I think it's time to petition the government to make MPB Day a national holiday. Are we agreed? And those who didn't make it, well, I'm sure that there will be re-caps aplenty in the next few days.

Thank you, Peter! What a great day!

So, right now I'm at home sipping coffee, seeing who else has posted reflections on the day, and eating a muffin. (How's that for a segue from sewing to baking?) 

One of the reasons I post my favorite recipes here is that a blog makes an excellent mobile cookbook, complete with the little tweaks I made and suggestions for future batches. When Phin came home with a small mountain of blueberries a few weeks ago, I was surprised to not find my go-to blueberry muffin recipe on the blog. It's from the White Dog Cafe Cookbook and has been a favorite of ours for years. In fact, this recipe came with Phin when we moved in together aeons ago.

Here it is:

Blueberry Muffins from White Dog Cafe

3 1/2c cake flour
1 1/2c sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4c oil
1 1/2c buttermilk
3c blueberries, preferably fresh

Preheat oven to 400. Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients. Mix the two together and then fold in the berries. Scoop batter into greased muffin tins - fill just to the rim. Bake for 30-35 min until just starting to brown. Cool 5 min and remove from pan.

The recipe says it makes 12, but I think those must be using enormous muffin tins since I usually get about 18 in my muffin/cupcake tins. I also bake for more like 25-30 minutes. Also, I am newly converted to the idea of using cupcake cups for muffins instead of greasing the pan. It makes it infinitely easier to get the muffins out of the tins without mutilating them.

What I like best about this recipe is that it has loads of blueberries. I hate a blueberry muffin that skimps on the berries. This is more like berries bound together with a little muffin, rather than muffin with a few polka dots. In my most recent batch, I had about 1/2 cup extra blueberries, so I tossed them in. A few of the muffins actually collapsed under the weight of the berries. So, in the future, I will probably stick to just 3 cups.

Loads of blueberries

My only other innovation was that I made a half batch of this previously blogged crumb topping and sprinkled it on before popping in the oven. Perfect!

I should also add that I've used regular all purpose flour, part "white" whole wheat flour, and part whole wheat pastry flour in the past when I haven't had cake flour and it's worked out fine. So is using milk and vinegar instead of buttermilk. It's a pretty forgiving recipe.  

Anyway, this is another TNT recipe for me. I just love summer baking! Do you bake in the summer?