Blueberry Lemon Muffins

I seem to be on a muffin craze lately, don't I? First was pear and ginger muffins, then blueberry lemon muffins... I still have a few more combinations I want to try out up my sleeve ;p

Anyhow, it's the season for blueberries and all other types of berries now in the Northern hemisphere, and in Singapore, we're lucky to get these exported to us rather cheaply -  blueberries are about $5 per 250g punnet, which is far cheaper than what I saw when I was in Australia. These blueberries are not fresh though, because I had a can of blueberries in the freezer for the longest time and I finally stumbled across them the other day, so the first thing that came to mind was blueberry muffins! Next thought was... lemon and blueberries would go well together, won't they? My mom disagreed, saying that lemons don't go well with blueberries and they would taste funny - I of course begged to differ... so I turned to my trusty friend Google and looked for a blueberry-lemon muffin and voila, I stumbled onto Elise's wonderful blog which featured a blueberry muffin with just the lemon zest - I specifically didn't want any muffin with lemon juice because I wanted the juice to drink with honey for my sore throat. 

I have to admit that this recipe really does deliver - it is light, fluffy, moist and most importantly, chock full of blueberries! (I also have to admit that this might not be the typical muffin-making method of mixing wet into dry and barely combining them but hey, this works!)

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated The New Best Recipe

Makes 10 2.5-inch muffins or 6 large muffins

Ingredients: 
187 g     all-purpose flour
1½ tsp    baking powder
¼ tsp      baking soda

¼ tsp      salt
70 g       unsalted butter, softened
95 g       castor sugar (I substituted 20g with brown sugar)

1 large egg (about 60g)
180 ml   plain yogurt
1 tsp      lemon zest
120 g     blueberries
1 tbl      flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. 
3. Add in the egg, beating until it is fully incorporated. Add in the lemon zest. 
4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Next, beat in one third of the yogurt. 
5. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients (a quarter of the total). Beat in a second third of the yogurt. 
6. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat. 
7. Fold in the berries. If using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour.
8. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the muffin cups and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops are dry to touch and golden brown. 
9. Set on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before serving. 

Janine's jots: 

• Taste: I gave these muffins to some of my harshest critics - my mom, my best friend, my picky brothers and myself, and all of us decided that these were the best blueberry muffins ever! The lemon zest provided that 'brightness' to the blueberry muffin that most blueberry muffins lack and the sweetness was just about right. 
• Texture: The texture of these muffins are phenomenal! They're really the fluffiest and lightest muffins you will ever taste! The moistness comes mostly from the blueberries but the combination is sublime!
• Serving size: I filled up 10 muffins cups with batter, making sure that each cup were almost seven-eighths full - these created the 'muffin tops' that you see as the tops spread. 
• Modifications: I am a little OCD, so I made sure that each muffin had at least 15 blueberries in them, before distributing the remainder blueberries in some muffin cups. If you don't wish to have blueberries in every bite, I would recommend reducing the blueberries to about 100g or so. Also, the original recipe calls for 120g of white sugar, but since I prefer a not-overly-sweet muffin, I reduced the sugar to 75g white and 20g brown. 
• Storage: I am not too sure how long exactly they will last because they were consumed in less than 2 days but they should last up to 3 days in our weather and up to a week in the refrigerator. 
• Would I make this again?: I am loving this so much, I am making another batch for tomorrow's breakfast with my remaining blueberries, substituting with orange zest this time round ;)

I'm totally loving the crusty little muffin tops :]