Naked Blueberry Lemon Cupcakes or Blueberry Lemon Muffins [creaming method]

This month's Aspiring Bakers could not have come at a better time - this month I've got relatives getting married, cousins celebrating birthdays, my mom's big half-a-century-old birthday - all opportunities for making beautiful cupcakes :]

After the success of my blueberry-lemon muffins earlier, I decided to take on another recipe muffin recipe. I thus tried this bookmarked recipe - an extremely popular muffin recipe on all recipes. I tried it with the original muffin mixing method - combining the wet and dry separately and briefly combining them before baking. However, I didn't like the texture of those muffins. I found the crumb to be too coarse and the muffins not as tasty because they used regular oil. Truth to be told, I prefer the tight crumbs that are typical of a cupcake. I thus decided to adapt that recipe to a creaming method, at the same time using butter instead of oil. I thus renamed this "cupcakes" because of the method used, although I'd think that in truth, this combination of flavors is typically found in morning muffins. Heck, even most muffins nowadays use the creaming method, so what exactly demarcates a muffin or cupcake is dubious even.

Ps you will realize that all three photos are of the same muffin, albeit from different perspectives. Well, this was cos it was the only muffin left when I realized that I forgotten to take photos. Admittedly not the nicest and most flattering photo, but it'll do. The blueberries were very fresh, and hence 'bled' a lot. 

Blueberry-Lemon Cupcakes (or originally Muffins)

Adapted from the most highly rated blueberry muffin recipe on all recipes (>5000 reviews!)

Makes 12 medium or 8 large muffins

Ingredients: 

70 g      unsalted butter, softened

100 g    castor sugar

190 g    all-purpose flour

½ tsp    salt

2 tsp     baking powder (9g)

1 large  egg (about 60g)

150g     milk 

1 tsp     lemon zest

120 g    blueberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C.
2. Sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. 
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter for a minute before adding in the sugar, beating until pale and fluffy. 
4. Add in the egg, beating until it is fully incorporated. Add in the lemon zest. The mixture may appear a little curdled but it is okay. 
5. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Next, beat in half of the milk. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients (a quarter of the total) following by the remaining half of the milk. Complete by beating in the remaining dry ingredients. Be careful to beat until just incorporated - you should not take more than a few seconds in between each addition. 
6. Fold in the blueberries and distribute the batter equally among the muffin cups. 
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops are dry to touch and golden brown. Set on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Janine's jots: 

• Note: If you want to frost/ice it like a normal cupcake, do fill the cupcake liners to about half full, so that you get a smooth top. This cupcake rises a lot because of the large amount of baking powder used, and I filled the batter to more than three-quarters each, because I wanted the distinctive hump for a muffin (as you can see in the photo above). 
• Taste: I actually preferred the taste of my previous blueberry-lemon muffins better, mainly because that recipe used yogurt and tasted richer. 
• Texture: I like the tight crumb from the creaming method far better than the muffin (dry-wet) method, but if you're in a rush to make this for breakfast, the muffin method works fine as well. 
• Modifications: None, this recipe is already greatly modified to suit my preferences. 
• Storage: The cupcake stores well at room temperature for 3 days, but the top will be a little sticky at the end of three days. Best to keep in the fridge and microwave it when you want to have it :]
• Would I make this again?: Not unless I don't have yogurt. Like I said previously - I like my other blueberry-lemon muffins better. 

I'll be submitting this to Min for Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011). I've a couple more 'naked' cupcakes coming up, because I was trying out various recipes for vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and I've done quite an extensive taste test comparison with quite a number of recipes - ranging from Rose Levy Beranbaum to Cooks Illustrated to Deb of Smitten Kitchen to Magnolia's famous cupcakes. Can't wait to get those posts done up soon :]