Mini Muffins
- Helluva Hostess {Katy}
- Mar 6, 2017
- 4 min read
Today I was dying to bake something! Sometimes I just get that craving. anybody else? These scrumptious blueberry mini muffins are one of my favorites. They're tiny, tasty, and easy to bring in to the office the next day so that I don't eat them all up myself. They're also easy to make!
A few years ago, my mother gave me my first copy of the classic, Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and it's been amazing for baking. The book is very well organized, full of pictures, and even includes nutritional information for items prepared as instructed.
Gather your Supplies & Ingredients:
Supplies:
KitchenAid Stand Mixer, I use the 5-quart Artisan series with the tilted head- mine came standard with the coated flat beater attachment. {{you could also use a large bowl and wooden spoon to mix}}
1/4 measuring cups
1 tbsp, 1 tsp, + 1/4 tsp measuring spoons
Rubber Spatula
Toothpicks
Oven mitt
I love measuring out everything beforehand, so I'm constantly using my Rubbermaid and Pyrex glass containers as prep bowls
Ingredients for the Muffins:
210 grams flour
66 grams white sugar, mine looks brown because I use Brave Tart's (of Serious Eats) recipe for toasted sugar, which makes the flavor stronger.
9.6 grams (2 tsp) baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup whole milk
160 grams frozen blueberries
2 tsp fresh lemon zest
Ingredients for Struesel Topping:
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinamon
2 tbsp butter {{I ran out of unsalted regular and had to use Kerrygold, it's the Irish butter and is not typically intended for baking, I highly recommend using regular unsalted as my struesel turned out a bit too rich}}
crushed pecans
Step 1: Combine the Dry Ingredients
In your mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, and baking powder. Then, create a well in the middle (like you would in mashed potatoes for your gravy).
Flour is one of those dry ingredients that when you measure by volume and then by weight, you come up with wildly different amounts. When baking, it's always best practices to measure out dry ingredients by weight. I definitely don't do it all of the time, but I'm trying to get better :).
Step 2: Combine the Wet Ingredients
Thoroughly beat your egg, then mix together the beaten egg, 3/4 cup milk, and 1/4 cup vegetable oil.
Step 3: Gently Stir the Egg and Flour Mixtures
Pour the wet mixture into the well in the dry mixture all at once.
Stir in the egg and milk mixture until just wet {see photo on left}. On a low setting on your stand mixer (1-2) this shold take less than 2 minutes, probably closer to 1 minute. If doing by hand with a wooden spoon, it may take a moment longer, but it still should not take very much time at all.
Step 4: Fold in the Blueberries and Lemon Zest
Blueberries are one of my favorite foods, so I use a bit more than the cookbook calls for ;). But trust me, it's absolutely the right amount.
My handheld microplane that wraps around my knuckles is one of my most used "uni-purpose tools." If you stick around, you'll see that I really like these seemingly single purpose tools, but most of mine get put to several tasks. Also, please ignore my scarred hands, I've had two cats and have gotten in to baking and boxing, none of these things have been kind to my hands, haha.
Zest your lemon, I used a bit too much in this batch, so stick to about 2 tsp, they will bake better. The lemon zest is completely optional, but it helps to cut the sweetness from the blueberries. Also, the freshness of the zest plays nicely with the rest of the flavors in this otherwise single-layered muffin.
Add your blueberries and lemon zest into your muffin base. Gently fold the blueberries into the base. Be careful not to over-mix your base, it should still look lumpy. The base will begin to turn purple, that's totally okay.
Step 5: Prep Your Struesel
Mix your 3 tbsp flour, 3 tsp brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp cinnamon.
Cut in 2 tbsp room temperature butter, continue cutting until the mixture is crumbling.
Again, this is where I messed up and use Irish butter instead of regular unsalted. It made my struesel a little too rich, but still tasty.
If desired, add in crushed pecans. While I'm usually not a fan of nuts in my baked goods, these were a pleasant surprise! The nuts and baked sugar added a little crunch that these soft muffins benefited from. Also, because the topping was a little sweet, the nuts helped to cut that as well.
Step 6: Prep Your Muffin Tin
Preheat your oven to 400*F.
My muffin tin is only a 12-cup, and this recipe makes about 3 dozen mini muffins, so I had to do it in 3 batches, but if you have a bigger tin, it'll go much faster.
Here's another place where I goofed, but live and learn, righ? I used paper muffin cups, which was a little bit of a mistake because when the blueberries cooked, they stuck too much to the cup and it was hard to pull them away when I went to eat the muffins. So either grease your tin, or line with foil cups.
Using your spatula or spoon, scoop the muffin batter into your tin, filling the cups 2/3-3/4 of the way.
I was a little warry about using my Kerrygold struesel on the sweet muffins, so I did a test run where I only used crumbled struesel on 1/3 of my first batch. Turns out, it's not too sweet or rich, still delicious! For the remainder of my mini muffins, I used struesel on each all of them! Crumble your struesel mixture over your muffins, clean off the edges though, because the sugar will bake on to the muffin tin and be very very hard to clean off.
Step 7: Bake + Enjoy!
Bake for 10 minutes on a middle-high rack.
Your blueberry mini muffins are done when they have puffed up, and a toothpick can be inserted, but comes out clean.
Cool for 5 minutes before removing.
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