blueberry coffeecake muffins with cinnamon and brown sugar streusel

The second thing I ever baked on my own was a blueberry coffeecake from a big bright orange Betty Crocker cookbook, my seventh grade year. Little sis and I biked bravely to the store for fresh blueberries and I set to work.

It was terrible. Alright, it tasted decent (fresh blueberries will save just about anything), but it was purple-streaked, pockmarked with streusel craters, and the berries had sunk to the bottom. I was still getting the hang of turning on the oven, not to mention learning to pack down brown sugar (and to not pack down flour), and knowing what a proper batter ought to look like before you poured it into the pan. I'm rather surprised it didn't end up as purple cardboard.

Undaunted, a few weeks later I made it again--with changes. I added flour to the streusel, practiced new coffeecake-construction techniques, played and prodded and altered the recipe, and had a great deal of fun. This recipe has never stopped evolving; no recipe ever does.

So began my days of treating kitchens like laboratories for mad science. This is where it started, with a recipe from a bright orange cookbook, and it continues. One morning recently I thought why not muffins?

Blueberry Coffecake Muffins
Adapted from Betty Crocker's Streusel Coffeecake recipe

1 C cake flour
1 C all purpose flour
1 C sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 C milk
1 egg
1/3 C butter, softened

1 bag blueberries, frozen
5 Tb brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

1/3 C brown sugar
1/3 C flour (or more)
3 Tb butter, cold
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 360 degrees.

Beat cake flour, AP flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, and butter on low until the flour is incorporated. Bump the mixer up to medium speed for two minutes, or until the batter is smooth.

Defrost the blueberries, if frozen. Combine with the brown sugar and cinnamon and put to the side.

To make the streusel: in a separate bowl combine the brown sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. This will take some time and arm strength. If you don't have pastry blades (I don't), use a whisk. Just pound that whisk, wire-end down, into the bowl, slicing and smooshing the butter into the dry goods. When you're done, it should look like chunky bread crumbs. If the crumbs are too large (think pea-size) then add more flour and keep pounding.

Line 12 muffin tins with paper muffin cups. Spoon in batter a touch less than 2/3 of the way up the sides.

Then spoon a generous dollop of blueberries into the center of the muffin. Just let it sit on top, don't pat them down into the batter or anything.

Cover the muffins with more batter, until the blueberries are just (or not quite) under the surface. Sprinkle on a layer of streusel.

Bake for about twenty minutes.

And More
Now, I ended up at this point with some extra batter, blueberries, and streusel. I was hardly going to let it go to waste.

I pulled out my friendly cast iron skillet, dropped 2 Tb of shortening into it and stuck in the 360 degree oven for 10 minutes, to get piping hot.

Meanwhile, I added to the leftover batter:
2 eggs
2 Tb brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 C flour
1 lemon (just the juice)

You might want to toss a 1 tsp baking powder into that mix as well, though it turned out fine, if a little flat, without it.

I poured this batter, carefully, into the hot skillet, sprinkled on the leftover blueberries and streusel, and then slid it back into the oven. It was done after about 15 minutes in the oven.