The Best Blueberry Muffins

These are my new favorite muffins. They have a blueberry jam-like mixture swirled into the tops as well as a lemon sugar topping. Yum! I even used 1/2 whole wheat flour, and you would never guess. I found this recipe a couple of places, but I believe it originally comes from the May/June 2009 Cooks Illustrated magazine. I first found it at Mel's Kitchen Cafe, and I followed her directions. (If you have not checked out her blog, you should. It is one of my favorites!)

Lemon-Sugar Topping:
1/3 cup sugar
zest from one lemon

Muffins:
2 cups frozen blueberries (or 2 cups fresh)
1 1/8 c (1/8 c = 2 tablespoons) plus 1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 cup oil (vegetable or canola)
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the topping:

Stir together sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and set aside.

For the muffins:

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a standard muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

Rinse one cup frozen berries under cold water and spread on a double layer of paper towels to dry well. Bring remaining one cup berries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing berries with a spoon several times and stirring frequently, until the berries have broken down and the mixture is thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 6-8 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and cool to room temperature, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Toss the berries that have dried on the paper towels in with the flour mixture. Whisk remaining 1 1/8 cups sugar and eggs together in a medium bowl until thick, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in the butter and oil until combined. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold egg mixture into flour mixture until just moistened. The batter will be lumpy with a few dry spots of flour – don’t overmix.

Using ice cream scoop or large spoon, fill the muffin cups until they are about 3/4 full. Spoon a teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into the center of each mound of batter. Using a skewer (or a chopstick), gently swirl the berry filling into the batter using a figure eight motion. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over the muffins.

Bake until the top of the muffins are golden and just firm, 17-18 minutes. Cool muffins in the muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.

Note: If you are short on time, you can skip the cooking of the 1 cup of blueberries and just mix all 2 cups into the batter. I highly recommend making the blueberry mixture though.