Smurfberry Muffins

This week, I managed to catch the new Smurfs movie and I got to say, it was more pleasant than I expected! I loved the cast (especially Hank Azaria, he was a hoot doing Gargamel) and the little Irish smurf. Who's doing the voice-over for the guy does anybody know?

Anyway, it could have been partly subconscious but I suddenly really wanted to bake blueberry muffins. Or it could have not been anything to be related to the movie at all. Either way I still want my muffins.

Pop one in your mouth! Or two. Or ten.

It had always occurred to me that it's not that easy to get a hold of blueberries in Singapore. Easily possible, but not always accessible. I was so happy to find stacks of them in my neighbourhood supermarket!

You'll need about 3/4 cup. In my case it happened to be the around 3/4 of the box as well.

Mix batter well and fold in the blueberries.

I expected them to be messy as I had read stories of people making blunders because the juice was seeping out, but in my case folding the batter was a breeze! I suppose it had something to do with the thick batter, and also I had kept the blueberries cold (you can use frozen blueberries as well).

Using an ice-cream scoop or a spoon, fill the paper liners or greased muffin tray up to 3/4 full.

Dot the top with one or two more berries so you'll have them peeking out the dome when it's finished!

I managed to fill about 9 paper liners, but they turned out to be a little much. Try to fill it a TEENSY bit less than 3/4 if you can!

Done! Let cool or devour straightaway.

Check out the yummy purple juice pooling around the muffin.

Split one and butter your muffin. That's right. Butter your muffin gooood.

& half of the rest you pack into paper bags to give to your loved ones!

These were really very good and they weren't too tart or too sweet as I had thought they would be. The sweetness of the muffin complemented the berries, and I really wouldn't say no to pairing these with a good cuppa tea.

Mmm. Muffins & tea. That's the life.



Perfect Blueberry Muffins
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen (Cook's Illustrated)

Ingredients:
71 grams unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

According to Smitten Kitchen:

Preheat oven to 190C.

Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean.