Big Blueberry Muffins

If you’re only going to have one type of muffin in your recipe repertoire, it should be a blueberry muffin. Blueberry muffins are almost universally popular and would probably be the breakfast muffin mascot if there were such a thing. Since they’re so popular, there are lots of blueberry muffin recipes around and, while some better than others, it’s pretty easy to find a decent recipe to work with. This blueberry muffin recipe is definitely a cut [far] above a “decent” muffin and even if it doesn’t turn out to be your dream blueberry muffin, it’s definitely going to be popular with any brunch crowd.

These muffins are tender and moist, but not particularly sweet. This means that they avoid the two most common traps of muffin recipes: tasting like cupcakes or being dense and heavy. The moisture comes from the fact that they use a mixture of butter and vegetable oil in the batter. The butter adds flavor and some lightness to the texture, as it is creamed in with the sugar, but the oil retains the moisture of the muffin over time and the muffins will keep well for a couple of days as a result.

Most of the sweetness in the muffins comes from ripe blueberries and not from added sugar. One of the things that really appeals to me about this trait of the recipe is that the muffins are very good plain, but are also perfect with butter, honey, cream cheese or any other topping you might like to pair them with. I used frozen wild blueberries (small, but sweet) in my batch. The picture below gives you an idea of exactly how many blueberries were packed into each muffin. Fresh blueberries will work just as well. If you happen to have unusually large blueberries, you might want to cut back on the amount just a bit.

Big Blueberry Muffins
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, very soft
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 – 2 cups (fresh or frozen) blueberries

Preheat oven to 375F. Line 16 muffin tin cups (might need two tins) with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the vegetable oil and the vanilla extract.
Alternate buttermilk and flour into butter mixture, ending with an addition of flour and working in 2 or three additions. Stir in blueberries.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
Bake for 18-22 minutes, until tops are lightly browned and a tester comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 16 big muffins