The Ultimate Muffin

My sister is a barista and manages the best coffee house over in Conway. You may think I'm biased, but go grab a Caramella from the Met sometime and tell me I'm wrong. I only wish they were closer. When we had a satellite store in Conway, I used to stop in for my daily fix and grab a muffin. Their muffins are the huge kind that you can only ever seem to buy at delis and coffeehouses and the like. A single muffin of this size is plenty for me for breakfast but I've often wished that I could make them at home because they're usually pretty expensive.

Thus began my quest for the perfect muffin.

It's been years in the making, but I'm finally satisfied with the size and texture of these guys. They're moist but have a good crumb, never chewy and just the right size for me. The next part of the experiment is lemon poppyseed and the great freezer experiment. What is the great freezer experiment you ask? Well, over at the Met, the muffins are frozen in cups. Each night, Sis takes the next day's flavors out of the freezer, puts them into a muffin pan and then leaves the whole business in the fridge overnight. When the crew comes in the next day, the muffins have defrosted and are popped into the oven. This means, every day they are serving freshly made muffins in an assortment of flavors. This made me wonder if it will work at home. I mean, how cool would it be to have a freezer full of ready to bake muffins that I could have fresh from the oven even on the busiest of mornings? I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, here's my recipe for blueberry muffins.

Blueberry Muffins

• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh wild Maine blueberries (accept no substitutes)
• zest of 1 lemon

Streusel Topping

• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 3 tbs flour
• 1-1/2 tbs chilled butter
• 1 tsp nutmeg

To make topping: Cut butter into dry ingredients until the whole business looks like coarse meal.

Preheat the oven to 450. I use the extra big muffin pan for my muffins, but go ahead and experiment with normal sized muffin pans. I spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray and then fill 5 cups with paper liners designed for extra large cups.

In a small bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. In a second bowl mix oil, egg, milk and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients along with the blueberries and fold together until just combined. Over mixing is bad. Pour this into the muffin cups. I fill mine right up to the top so they get that big mushroom top, which is also why this only makes 5 muffins. You could choose to fill them less and make an even six, but that's your call. Sprinkle topping on batter.

Put a little water in the empty muffin cup so that it doesn't overheat and pop in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool about 15 minutes before eating, if you can wait that long.