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Happy Sunday Bread Heads! This week I was going to do a post about the gear that you need to make excellent breads. However, when I was shopping yesterday there were the most perfect blueberry’s at the store and so I changed my mind. Instead of cooking gear, we will be doing Blueberry-Lemon Muffins.

This recipe is from the Iroquois Hotel on Mackinac Island Michigan. If you have never been to Mackinac Island, you really should put it on your list of places to go. It can only be reached by ferry and no cars or trucks are allowed on the streets of the island. This makes it a quite and leisurely place to spend a week or so in the beautiful weather of a Michigan summer. I was lucky enough to talk my way into the kitchen there on vacation by application of some outrageous flattery and total gall. The recipe was originally Melanie Sullivan’s and the good folks at the Iroquois were kind enough to let me jot it down.

These muffins are spectacular; they have just the right heft to them to keep them from being the overly processed and cakey muffins you find in most stores. The tart combination of the lemon and blueberry is sweetened to perfection by the final step of dipping the tops in melted butter, then sugar.

Iroquois Hotel Blueberry Lemon Muffins

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking soda (reduce by half if you are baking over 5000 feet)

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk (do not use skim, but if you must cut down the fat 2% is acceptable)

2/3 cup cooking oil

1 ½ cups blueberry’s (fresh is preferred but frozen work very nearly as well)

½ tablespoon lemon zest

Glaze:

4 tablespoons of butter

½ cup sugar

Baking pan – One 12 cup muffin tin, greased with butter.

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl sift the flour in, then add all of the other dry ingredients. Stir to combine.

In a small bowl whisk the eggs for about 10 seconds, or until they are just even. Add the milk and cooking oil and stir together.

Make a well in the flour mixture and pour all of the milk and egg mixture into well. Stir as little as possible to moisten the flour. Set the batter aside for a minute.

In another small bowl, combine the blueberry’s and the lemon zest. Fold them into the batter with a large spatula. Again, stir very gently and only do enough to fully mix them in.

Spoon the batter into the tin, so that each cup is ¾ full.

Slip the tin into the oven on a rack set to the middle of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes. Check to see if the muffins are golden brown on top, if not, they can bake for up to another 5 minutes (this batch took 23 minutes).

Melt the butter in a small pan and pour the sugar into a wide bowl.

When the muffins are baked, place on a wire rack to cool for five minutes. Run a knife around the edges of each muffin. Tilt the tray and gently lift each muffin out of the tin, one at a time.

Dip the top of each muffin, lightly, in the butter, then in the sugar. You can make these the day before and reheat them for 10 minutes at 325 degrees, but they are their very best the day they are made. They are so quick and easy that there really is no need for advance preparation.

So, now just go find some fresh blueberry’s and make yourself a treat! Next week I promise we will have the post on baking gear.

The flour is yours.