Summer Pt. 2

As you can see from my previous post, I made lemon pound cake.  The next project I took on was blueberry muffins. I somehow decided I was CRAVING muffins like none other, and I haven't had a good one in a while.  Sure, Udi's makes a decent muffin, but there is something amazing about a muffin right out of the oven, right after you baked it yourself.  ATK's "The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook" just so happens to have a gluten free blueberry muffin recipe in it.  I used it, with a few tweaks here and there.  Here is the original recipe:

Ingredients
11 oz. ATK GF Flour
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. xantham gum
5 1/4 oz. sugar
8 T. butter, melted
1/2 c. plain whole-milk yogurt
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
7.5 oz. blueberries
2 T. turbinado sugar


Recipe
Preheat the oven to 375 and grease a muffin tin. I used cupcake liners to have an easier clean up.  Next, start with a large bowl. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and xantham gum.  In another bowl, whisk together sugar, butter, yogurt, eggs, and vanilla until well combined. Make sure you get all the way to the bottom of the bowl so the sugar doesn't settle.  Using a rubber spatula, fold the liquid into the dry ingredients until fully combined and there are no lumps.  Dump in the blueberries and mix until combined. Do this gently so the blueberries don't break and bleed into the batter.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes is up, spoon the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes.  Halfway through the 15-20, turn the muffin tin around in the oven so you can bake evenly.  A toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the middle of the muffin.

I changed a few things in the recipe. To start, I didn't have yogurt, so I used 1/2 cup sour cream.  Also, I added the zest of one lemon to the recipe before I added the blueberries. I really like the combination of blueberries and lemon, so I figured this would be good.  I didn't have any turbinado sugar, so I just didn't use it.  Instead, I made a quick glaze of 1/4 cup powdered sugar and about 2 t. lemon juice and spooned it on top of the muffins.  It added the sweetness of the sugar without having to search for the big crystal sugar.  Another variation that could work is to use raspberries instead of blueberries.  I almost did this, but I went to the store specifically to buy blueberries, so I figured I would use them.

As for letting the batter sit, according to ATK, letting it sit for 30 minutes makes it not grainy.  When I ate the muffin, it was perfect.  It had the right amount of sweetness and tangy, with the blueberries bursting when I bit into it. The crumb was small enough and moist enough that it was the absolute perfect consistency. I wouldn't use muffin cups next time, though, because the bottom of the muffin stuck to it.  Otherwise, I would definitely make this recipe again. It really hit the spot!