Blueberry Muffins

Muffins containing blueberries can be made successfully all year around. If fresh blueberries are not available, you can use frozen blueberries or any other fruit you like.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2-1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup fresh blueberries


Preparation:

  • Slightly grease nonstick muffin pan (or place paper muffin cups in muffin tin) and set aside.
  • Preheat owen to hot (400º F or about 205º C).
  • Cream the butter, and add the sugar gradually.
  • Stir in the beaten egg and milk.
  • Reserve 1/4 cupful of flour, and mix the remainder with the salt and the baking powder.
  • Stir the dry ingredients into the first mixture.
  • Mix the 1/4 cupful of flour with the berries and fold them into the batter.
  • Fill prepared muffin pan about two-thirds full of the batter, and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes.

Makes 6 large muffins.

NOTE: Cranberries are often used in muffins instead of blueberries, but to some people they are not agreeable because of the excessive amount of acid they contain.


Real Cooking
Did You Know?
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries. Species in the section Cyanococcus are the most common fruits sold as "blueberries" and are mainly native to North America. They are usually erect but sometimes prostrate shrubs varying in size from 10 centimetres (3.9 in) to 4 metres (160 in) tall. In commercial blueberry production, smaller species are known as "lowbush blueberries" (synonymous with "wild"), and the larger species as "highbush blueberries". The leaves can be either deciduous or evergreen, ovate to lanceolate, and 1–8 centimetres (0.39–3.1 in) long and 0.5–3.5 centimetres (0.20–1.4 in) broad. The flowers are bell-shaped, white, pale pink or red, sometimes tinged greenish.

The fruit is a false berry 5–16 millimetres (0.20–0.63 in) diameter with a flared crown at the end; they are pale greenish at first, then reddish-purple, and finally blue or blueish-purple when ripe. They have a sweet taste when mature, with variable acidity. Blueberry bushes typically bear fruit from May through June though fruiting times are affected by local conditions such as altitude and latitude.

The blueberry muffin is the official state muffin of Minnesota.