Coconut Orange Muffins

Hey guess what? I've got another muffin recipe to share.

At one of the local bakeries they make the most amazing muffin. It is orange and coconut and so moist and amazing. Well last night I wanted one of those muffins, so I went on the hunt for a copy-cat recipe, and I found this one (and many others that sound amazing but not exactly what I was looking for). I liked the idea of throwing the whole orange in because I figured to get the amount of moisture and orange flavour it couldn't just be juice and zest. By the way, orange juice is definitely not orange. When you compare it to the colour of an actual orange pulverized in the food processor it looks so pale and yellow. Maybe it also has something to do with I was using Cara Cara's and they are incredibly dark and so so juicy and smooth.

It was really the perfect time to make these because it is right in the middle of 'specialty orange weeks' at the local grocery store. They have a least 8 different types of specialty, organic oranges that they specially bring in for only a couple of weeks a year. So, I had to buy a few different ones to sample.

I made this recipe just as it was written on food.com, but after this batch I might try and change things up a bit with some addition of some banana or pineapple or...we'll see. Big plans though. The first one of these I sampled once they had cooled tasted exactly like what I was going for. Unfortunately, once they rested overnight they didn't taste identical in the morning. But, they still were pretty good and very flavourful so I guess I can't complain.

One thing worth noting with this recipe is that they do not rise (at all). Nor do they melt down and spread out. What I'm trying to say is that if you have the batter all lumpy and uneven in the muffin tins, you'll pull the finished muffins out and they will have the same mountains and valleys that they did going into the oven. So, not the prettiest, but the coconut sprinkled on top helps and I'd recommend smoothing out the top of the batter in the tins gently with a spoon (I know, a big no-no with muffins, or so my Mom says).

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 Medium Orange (I used 2 small minus a few bites), seeds removed, with peel

1/4 C. Orange Juice

1/2 C. Coconut Milk (or OJ)

1 Egg

1/2 C. Butter, softened

1 3/4 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 C. Shredded Coconut

3/4 C. Sugar

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

2 Tbsp. Shredded Coconut

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F

~Wash & slice orange and process in food processor until pureed 

~Add in OJ, milk, egg & butter and pulse until creamy

~In a separate bowl, combine flour, coconut, sugar, powder & soda.

~Fold in wet ingredients to dry.

~Scoop batter into greased or lined muffin tins.

~Sprinkle tops with coconut

~Bake for 20-22 minutes

Enjoy

Apple Pie Muffins with Chocolate Streusel

I decided to forgo making this as a loaf, and instead made it into muffins because they bake a lot quicker and you don't have to worry about cutting them, etc. They smell (and taste) like apple cider actually and the top is very good. I used mac apples and so they just sort of melted away into the muffin itself. Next time I may change it up a little and use some granny smith's because I like the tang of a green apple, and being a harder apple they'll probably leave some chunks once baked.

The one thing about this recipe that caught me off guard was that it required you to use an electric mixer. Not that I'm complaining at all, I love any excuse to use my KA, but it was actually a first for me, having to use a mixer for muffins I mean. Every other recipe I've used has called for either melted butter or oil and so no need to cream the butter like this one did.

I would recommend using a darker chocolate chip for this recipe. As much as I love milk chocolate in baking, I think the semi sweet chocolate paired well with the other flavours in this recipe. Also, I found the amount of streusel that is made is a bit too much for 12 muffins, but better a little too much than not enough right?

This recipe was adapted from Dinners, Dishes & Desserts who adapted from Mommy's Kitchen who originally got it from BHG Best Comfort Food Magazine. Whew, that's quite the reference there!

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

Streusel

1/3 C. Flour

1/3 C. Brown Sugar

1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon

Pinch of Nutmeg

3 Tbsp. Butter

3/4 C. Semi Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips

Muffins

1/2 C. Butter, softened

1/2 C. Sugar

1/2 C. Brown Sugar

1/3 C. Buttermilk

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

2 Eggs

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/8 Tsp. All Spice

1/8 Tsp. Nutmeg

Pinch Ginger

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1 C. All Purpose Flour

2 C. Apples, peeled & diced (2 medium apples)

1/3 C. Semi Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips

Directions

Streusel

~Combine all ingredients except the chocolate and mix with your fingers until it resembles a course meal (looks like sand).

~Add in the chocolate chips and mix to combine.

~Set aside

Muffins

~Preheat oven to 400 F

~In large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars until dissolved.

~Add in buttermilk and baking powder. Mix

~Mix in eggs & vanilla.

~Add spices, salt & flours and stir just until combined.

~Fold in the apples and the chocolate chips

~Spoon batter into greased (or lined) muffin tins

~Top generously with streusel topping.

~Bake for 5 minutes at 400 F, then decrease temperature to 350 F and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Enjoy

Peach Streusel Muffins

So, I really love these muffins. I guess I should add an 'also' to the end of that sentence, because if you go back to the early days of this blog you'll see that I kinda have a muffin obsession. But this one is a different sort of love. It's not a chocolate love like in my Banana Chocolate Chip muffins, or a lemon love like in my Lemon Macaroon muffins, or even a nutella love like in my Nutella Bran muffins. No, this recipe is a versatility love and it also feeds the perfectionist in me because they always seem to work, whatever you throw at them (or in them). For example, I substituted out the required two cups peaches called for and instead added in two cups worth of any of these combinations:

~Cherry Blueberry

~Pear

~Carrot Blueberry

~Cherry

~Apple Nutmeg

The possibilities really are endless. I know my favourites were the peach (the original recipe called for peach), the apple nutmeg (tasted like a great apple pie), and the carrot blueberry. Isn't this just amazing? I mean, how many fruit muffins can you make into a carrot muffin by just throwing in carrot and having it work? I definitely am incredibly grateful I came across this recipe. And the fact that it has a streusel on top just makes it even better.

One thing I would recommend is that you use paper muffin liners for this recipe. Due to the amount of fruit and moisture in the batter (and then the crispy and hard topping), it is very very difficult to get these muffins out of the tins in one piece. And by very hard I mean impossible. Let me put it this way, you've been warned. Other than that I have yet to find anything you can really do wrong with this recipe. One other small hint though for aesthetic purposes is if you want the muffins to not be slightly sunken in the middle, make sure you have covered the entire top surface of the batter before baking with the streusel mix. Other than that it's smooth sailing. Oh, and if you are using canned peaches, it is rather difficult to check when they are fully baked. Simply because the peaches are so moist and abundant in this recipe and when you stick your toothpick in it often comes out wet. A word to the rise, these are really resilient to over baking (the top just seems to get better, and there is so much moisture in the batter), that you are better to leave it in for a couple more minutes than you think.

Recipe adapted from Best Health Magazine.

Makes 12 muffins (if making smaller muffins and thus more muffins, you'll have to increase the amount of streusel topping or you won't be able to cover each muffin completely).

Ingredients

Muffins

1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 C. Finely Chopped Pecans (omitted)

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

1 Tsp. Lemon Zest

1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 Tsp. Salt

1 Egg

1 C. Sugar

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1/4 C. Butter, melted

1/2 C. Buttermilk

2 C. Peaches, diced (I've only ever used canned due to the season, but originally calls for fresh)

Streusel
1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour
2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp. White Sugar
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
Pinch of Salt
1/4 C. Toasted Pecans, roughly chopped (omitted)
1/4 C. Butter, melted

Directions

~Preheat oven to 400 F

Muffins

~In a medium bowl, combine flour, pecans, baking powder, soda, zest, cinnamon and salt, and set aside.

~In a large bowl, combine the egg and sugar and whisk until well combined. 

~Add in vanilla, butter, and buttermilk and whisk to combine

~Fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, making sure not to over mix.

~Fold the peaches into batter.

~Spoon batter into lined muffin tins.

Streusel

~In a small bowl, combine all ingredients and mix with a fork (or fingers) until you get a chunky (evenly moistened) mixture.

~Spoon mixture onto muffin batter

~Bake at 400 F for 5 minutes then lower temperature to 375 F (without opening oven door) and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. If muffins are browning too much on top and are still soft inside, lower the temperature to 350 F and bake until the gooeyness is gone in the centre).

Raspberry-Coconut Buttermilk Muffins

Now, I typically like to keep my fresh berries for eating by themselves. But, I was not prepared to be fighting with frozen raspberries for this recipe, because frozen berries in a thick batter = streaking and mushing. So, I caved and used the fresh berries from our bushes. This recipe pretty much used up today's pickings, because unfortunately it is an off year for our bushes. My Grandpa would be so disappointed. His raspberries were his pride and joy and ours have never lived up to those standards. Maybe twice in a year I'm lucky enough to taste a raspberry that tastes exactly like his did. The funny thing is, I don't even know if I'm comparing what I taste to his actual berry taste, because I would have been only 3 years old the last year he would have had his bushes. But that taste just triggers something, I swear.

Another thing that brings up memories is when I first opened the bag of new coconut for this recipe and the first thing that comes to mind is Tim Hortons donuts. The ones with the yellow or blue tinged coconut that adorned the lemon or blueberry donuts that were (what I assume to be) seasonal specials. So much artificial colouring that would make a parent of today scream in terror, but I loved them. The smell of the coconut just brought me back to those donuts, which is funny because there is a lot of other (and better things) that coconut could remind me of, but oh well.

This recipe is one of those ones that was a newspaper clipping that has been photocopied and placed in my Mom's Recipe Binder (you know it's good when it's been passed around like that). I don't know who recommended it to her, probably somebody made them and shared them at work, and from what I can make out from the top corner, it looks like this appeared in the Times Colonist, but when I do not know.

Makes: 9 large muffins

Ingredients

1 3/4 C. Flour

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1/2 C. Unsweetened Medium Coconut Flakes, divided

1 Egg

1/3 C. Sugar

1 C. Buttermilk

3 Tbsp. Butter, melted

1 1/4 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Raspberries

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Grease muffin tins or line with paper liners.

~In a large bowl, whisk the flour, powder, soda and salt with 1/4 C. of the coconut. Set aside.

~In a medium bowl, combine egg, sugar, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla. Whisk to combine.

~Sprinkle raspberries with 2 Tbsp. of the dry ingredients and toss to coat.

~Pour wet ingredients into dry and combine with a few quick stirs. Batter should be lumpy. Don't over mix.

~Gently fold in the raspberries.

~Scoop batter into prepared tins.

~Sprinkle top of muffins with the remaining 1/4 C. of coconut (it will look like a lot, but it really is the perfect amount for 9 muffins. So if you are making more than 9 muffins, you'll want to increase the coconut topping accordingly, otherwise these muffins rise really strangely if they don't have enough topping on top. Strange, I know.)

~Bake for 20-22 minutes or until puffed and golden (and toothpick comes out clean.)

~Cool slightly then remove from pans and then cool completely before storing.

Enjoy

Mom's Banana Chocolate Muffins

Growing up my Mom only made one type of muffins. Well that's probably a lie. I'm sure she tried out other recipes, but this was the one she always went back to. Now, even though I've been on a muffin kick for the last several months, I actually haven't tried out this recipe. I thought I'd give it a try though today, because with the heat our bananas are turning quicker than we can eat them.

This recipe was originally a banana loaf recipe and it did not have any chocolate in it. My mom converted it to muffins though, because she found banana bread difficult to get cooked evenly throughout. Some batches, instead of putting in the chocolate she'd throw in blueberries. Now, while I love blueberries, I was never that fond of them in this recipe. I think because it just goes so well with the chocolate. I also have the faintest memory of her using canned peaches in these muffins as well, but she didn't do that all that often.

So the most amazing thing happens when you cook these muffins. They get incredibly crispy on top when you pull them out of the oven, but when you store them in a container they go very moist and soft. Meaning they will turn quite quickly if stored in a warm place. I don't care how full you are when these come out of the oven, you have to have one. Of all the other muffin recipes I've tried, I have never had anything quite like it. The thing is, when baking these, you need to make sure the tops are dark brown. No golden here, you want them to be dark. Be patient, it will happen, and it is so totally worth it. I can't stress this crispy factor enough.

My mom got this recipe from my Aunt Laurel (at least that's what it says on her copy of the recipe.) Where she found the recipe though is a mystery to me, so that's as far as i can take these credits.

Makes: 12 Large Muffins

Ingredients

1 C. Banana, mashed

1 C. White Sugar

1/4 C. Vegetable Oil

1/2 C. Sour Cream (we use either applesauce or soy yogurt instead to make this dairy free)

2 Eggs

1 1/2 C. Flour (I used whole wheat)

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1 C. Chocolate Chips

3/4 C. Milk Chocolate Bar, chunked

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F

~In a medium bowl, combine banana, sugar, oil, sour cream and eggs. Whisk well to combine.

~In a small bowl, combine flour, powder, soda and salt. Stir.

~Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Stir just enough to combine.

~Mix in chocolate.

~Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins. Fill them just about to the top. (These muffins puff up amazingly and go really crispy on top. You don't want to have not enough batter, because you'll miss out on this if there isn't enough batter to rise above the edge of the tin.)

~Place tins in oven.

~Bake for 18-20 minutes or until dark brown and crispy on top.

~Remove from oven and allow to cool. 

~Store in a sealed container (but make sure to eat a few with the crispy top before you store them away).

Enjoy

Peanut Butter Cup Muffins

Okay, people said these were good. My dog loved me when I was making them because she got to lick the peanut buttery spoons clean. (She's such a good little helper.) I don't actually know what they taste like as I'd much rather eat my Nutella Muffins than these. Plus, I'm not so fond of these muffins for the sole reason that they gave me a horrible time when trying to photograph them. Yup, I don't know what it is about muffins (and breakfast foods and breads) that make them so hard to get a good picture of. Maybe it's that they are all brown and brown isn't the nicest colour. Or even that they are brown and I'm trying to take their picture next to a brown countertop, brown wood board, brown kitchen cupboards, brown walls. I think I've found why I can't get a decent picture. Then again, didn't I say that I don't really care if I have top notch photography (or even mediocre), so I shouldn't be fretting over this. This blog in the end is just for me to document what went right and wrong in the kitchen. Hey, if anyone else wants to read this then that's a bonus.

Yes, this is the same muffin recipe as the one from which I made my Banana Bran Nutella Muffins. In the process of trying to make these muffins dairy free, I think I also created something wonderful. You see, the first time I made these with peanut butter, I threw a couple chocolate chips on top as an after thought because hey, everyone that likes peanut butter seems to love peanut butter cups. Well the verdict quickly came in, they were good but didn't have enough chocolate. So here you have my updated Peanut Butter Cup Muffin Recipe. And yes, they still are pretty healthy (minus the odd chocolate chip or two now in them.)

One thing I did notice is that while you think peanut butter and nutella have a similar consistency, they actually bake up quite differently. With the nutella, I was able to swirl the extra spread on top of each muffin and it just stayed there nicely like I had placed it. The peanut butter on the other hand really melted and oozed over the top of the entire muffin (and looked really horrible and unappetizing). My recommendation: continue to place the nutella on top of the batter, but if you do peanut butter, place the blob of peanut butter on top of the batter and then with a toothpick try to flip the blob upside down so that the entire blob is coated in a bit of muffin batter. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, just push the blob into the depths of the muffin batter. When the peanut butter is encased by the batter it doesn't ooze away and so you bite into a peanut butter surprise.

The original recipe is still from Baking Bites.

Ingredients

Makes 14 Very Large Muffins (or 18 Regular Sized)

1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1 C. Oat Bran (or Quick-Cooking Oatmeal)

2 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 1/4 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Mashed Bananas (about 2 1/2 Bananas)

1/3 C. (heaping) Peanut Butter (+ additional for top ~ 1/3 C. extra)

1 C. Buttermilk

1 1/2 C. Chocolate Chips

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Line muffin tins with liners or grease.

~In a large bowl, combine flour, bran, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt. Stir to combine.

~In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs, banana, nutella and buttermilk until smooth.

~Poor wet mixture into dry, add chocolate chips and stir until just combined.

~Fill each muffin tin.

~Drop 1-2 tsp of the additional peanut butter onto top of each muffin, then either push the peanut butter into the middle of the batter or with a toothpick, flip the peanut butter blob around to get the top surface covered by muffin batter.

~Bake until toothpick comes out clean. Approximately 13-15 minutes for regular sized muffins or 15-17 for large muffins.

~Cool muffins in tin slightly then remove to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Enjoy

Bran Muffins You'll Actually Eat

What do you think when you hear the phrase Bran Muffin? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now, imagine two things 1) banana and 2) nutella. Have I got your attention yet? Oh yeah, and what if I told you next that they're still healthy (no butter and very little oil).

The funny thing about bran muffins is that the one single muffin I remember from my young childhood was Timmy's Oat Bran Date & Orange Muffin. I was probably only 5 or so but I recall that being my go to muffin when everyone went for coffee. I don't know now if I liked that taste of it, or just the name, but it's still pretty ironic that I liked bran as a 5 year old and then wouldn't touch it for many years after. I think it has always been that bran muffins always seem to have nuts or raisins in them, and I'm not found of raisins. Anyway, this recipe has not sign of raisins, or any other stereotypical bran muffin add in for that matter.

Okay, so these are the bran muffins that I most definitely will be adding to my make again muffin collection. They are great. They're moist and wonderful and have a hint of healthiness mixed in with a side of nutella. Unfortunately, nutella has dairy in it and so I halved this recipe (and still got 9 fair sized muffins) and made another type of dairy free muffins for the lactose intolerant among us. Next time, I might make the full batch but split it and add peanut butter to half and nutella to the rest, to save me having to make two batches one after the other. There's nothing worse than having to wash bowls you just used, to then go and dirty them again. The other thing I did for this recipe was I substituted some whole wheat flour for all purpose. Usually I split it and do half and half, but for this recipe I did 1 C. Whole Wheat Flour and 1/2 C. All Purpose. Eventually I'm trying to completely eliminate all purpose flour, but I don't want to make a complete swap right away on a recipe, because of the weight difference between the two flours. I'm also just realizing now as I type this that I swapped out the buttermilk for some vanilla soy milk with a bit of lemon juice added in to make it buttermilk-like. Oops, I guess I'm so used to not cooking with dairy milk, that even when other ingredients aren't dairy free, I still reach for the soy milk. Ha! I didn't even realize I did that until just now, some 4 days after the fact. I won't keep you from this recipe any longer.

Recipe from Baking Bites.

Ingredients

Makes 18 muffins

1 1/2 C. All Purpose Flour (or a combination of whole wheat and all purpose-see above comment)

1 C. Oat Bran or Quick-Cooking Oatmeal

1 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil.

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Mashed Banana (about 2 bananas)

6 Tbsp. Nutella

1 C. Buttermilk

additional Nutella for topping

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Line muffin tins with liners or grease

~In a large bowl, combine flour, bran, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

~In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs, banana, nutella and buttermilk until smooth.

~Poor wet mixture into dry, and stir until just combined.

~Fill each muffin tin.

~Drop 1-2 tsp of nutella onto top of each muffin and swirl around with a toothpick (this didn't work so well for me. It really just clumped, but don't worry it ended up looking fine and still tasting good.)

~Bake until toothpick comes out clean from centre of muffin. Approximately 13-15 minutes.

~Cool muffins in tin slightly then remove to cool completely on a rack.

Enjoy

Oh yeah, I'm kind of happy with how these pictures turned out for once.

Lemony Blueberry Macaroon Muffins

I've been on the hunt lately for the perfect muffin recipe. Now, amazingly enough I had thought I had found it in the first recipe I tried. It was a great basic muffin recipe that would allow you to add in anything and everything. It was great. It has a brown sugar streusel topping and was not cakey whatsoever.  But then I got bored of it. Or maybe I should say I got sick of it. After all, I had to have made at least a half a dozen batches of it in under 3 weeks. So, that was when I started looking. What I was really looking for was a good lemony muffin with blueberries in it. The problem is, so many muffins just taste like cupcakes. Which was okay, but not really what I was going for. After all, if you want a cakey muffin you can just stop by any grocery store or Tim Hortons (yes, did I mention I'm Canadian? :)

The next thing I found was that the lemon flavour never really came through in any of the muffins I tried, and I started to think that lemon juice being added to a lot of the recipes was more to curdle the milk into a makeshift buttermilk than anything else. (Did you know you could do this? It's just new to me and an awesome trick when you don't have any buttermilk on hand, or you are using dairy substitutes.) Finally I found a recipe that I was convinced would be it, because instead of just using a lot of lemon juice or lemon zest, they used something different. Now you probably see where I'm going with this...Lemon Curd. Yes, the recipe called for you to do a molten centre of lemon curd. Well, after making the muffin I had the same problem as the person who wrote the recipe, the curd just dissolved into the batter upon baking because the batter was pretty runny for a muffin. No molten centre could be found, nor could you even detect that anything had ever even been there to begin with.

I'd all but given up (a little too dramatic maybe?) until I realized I had one more muffin recipe that I had saved to my files. While it didn't look much different from the other recipes I had tried, I decided to give it a try with a few adaptations and what do you know, it was amazing. I've actually made this recipe twice in a row without changing anything, which is a huge feat for me because usually I switch out the add ins every time and use different fruit, berries, etc. as to not got bored. So I have to thank, For the Love of Cooking, for this great muffin recipe. While I did make some adaptations such as the lemon curd and using blueberries instead of raspberries, I pretty much followed her recipe for the batter exactly as she has written. The only thing is, I may have to try use the raspberries at some point, because the only thing I love more than blueberries is raspberries.

Even though the batter is thicker for this recipe, the lemon curd still melts away into the batter upon cooking. The only difference with this muffin recipe is that because of the thickness of the batter, the melted curd doesn't go very far. So while there isn't a surprise of gooey goodness when you bite into these muffins, there is a distinct spot that you can taste the fuller lemon flavour and you can actually see where the curd melted through. Plus there is a slight difference in texture. All-in-all, it is definitely worth the extra work to add the lemon curd into this recipe.

After all this time, I can't help but think now that the flavour and consistency I was chasing could actually be found in a cookie (yes I know, strange right?) that I had made many years ago. I should probably go back and try that recipe again, and maybe even put it in a muffin tin to bake.

Now just a small disclaimer, while I've named this recipe Macaroon Muffins, there isn't actually any coconut in them whatsoever. The reason for this name is because when you pull these babies out of the oven the muffin top looks exactly like a macaroon due to the baked streusel on top. Plus, they are just as heavenly.

On a final note, I would not recommend using muffin cups for this recipe, or any recipe that you decide to stuff with lemon curd. The reason being, that the butter and sugar in the curd in addition to the blueberries really caramelizes on the edges when cooking and I had an awful time separating the paper from the muffin in the first batch I made that used the paper cups. Instead, just grease your muffin tins really well, and I would also recommend greasing the top surface of the tins as well, because the streusel topping overflows a bit and while I have found that the base of the muffin pops out pretty easily, it is actually the overflowing muffin top that can pose a bit of an issue due to all the sugars caramelizing.

Ingredients

Makes: 12 Muffins

Muffin:

2 C. Flour (I used 1 C. All Purpose and 1 C. Whole Wheat)

1/2 C. White Sugar

1 Tbsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Salt

1/2 C. butter, melted

1/2 C. Milk (I used Light Vanilla Soy Milk)

Juice of 1 lemon (probably between 1/8-1/4 C. depending on the size and juiciness of your lemon)

1 Tsp. Vanilla

2 Eggs

Zest of 1 Lemon  

1 1/2 C. Blueberries (Fresh or Frozen, I used Frozen)

Lemon Curd

Streusel Topping:

1/4 C. White Sugar

2 Tbsp Flour (I used All Purpose)

2 Tbsp Butter

Directions

~Preheat oven to 400 F

~Grease muffin tins both inside and on the top surface for best results

~In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir well to blend

~In a medium bowl, whisk butter, milk, juice, zest, vanilla and the eggs together.

~Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and stir just to combine.

~Add in the berries and mix in, ensuring they are evenly distributed in the batter.

~Spoon batter into greased muffin tins. Then with a spoon, make a well in the centre of the ball of batter. 

~Fill well up with a scoop of lemon curd and then gently fold back muffin batter over the curd to cover the well. (It is okay to have a little bit of curd poking out of the top). Set muffin tin aside.

~In a small bowl, combine the sugar, flour and butter for the streusel and with your fingers, massage ingredients until they combine and form a sort of crumble.

~Top muffins with the crumble and place in oven to bake for approximately 15 minutes. Don't over bake or you'll loose the moistness from the curd.

~Cool muffins to ease in their removal from the tins.

Enjoy...and stay tuned yet again for another idea for which to use lemon curd.