Blueberry Muffin Tops...

I was distracted at the market this weekend with a local vendor talking about honey and when I turned around to ask Jeff a question, he was gone! A couple minutes later I see him coming down the row, shuffling through the bustling crowd, with a silly grin on his face and a very large bucket of fresh blueberries! The first thing I asked him to do was stick out his tongue... yep, purple - he had already chomped down at least a fistful!

Since we were now blessed with a ton of berries (with probably another ton in the freezer from a few weeks ago too), I figured I better find a way to work them into the Wednesday Treat Day this week. Thankfully this didn't take long as I knew exactly what I was going to do after coming across a recipe for these Blueberry Muffin Tops!

There was only one problem with my plan - we don't have a muffin top pan! We do, however, have this snazzy burger bun pan from King Arthur Flour that we've had for years.

Now, the pan is not nearly as big as a muffin top pan, but the idea is the same - I guess we'll just have to live with calling them "miniature" Muffin Tops!

The batter for these muffins is a bit richer than your ordinary everyday muffin, swapping out oil for liquid gold (aka melted butter) and tossing in an extra egg yolk. The original recipe didn't call for it, but since I quite enjoy the combination of blueberries and lemon, I thought it might be nice to stir a couple teaspoons worth of fresh grated zest into the mix. Just remember, as soon as you add the wet ingredients into the dry, stir just enough to barely combine the batter, then gently fold in the blueberries enough to distribute them throughout.

If you're using a muffin top pan, divide the entire bowlful between the twelve wells - since I was using a smaller pan, I had to bake these off in batches. I wondered if the batter would start to lose its punch after sitting around for awhile, but it worked well. I did rinse the pan in cold water to cool it off faster, allowing me to knock out the next batch quicker. Before we baked the muffins, there was one more touch to the batter, making these tops an extra special treat - a groovy crumble!

All that's needed for this is chilled butter cubes, granulated sugar and flour, all rubbed together with your fingertips to form small, alarmingly addictive nuggets. If you fancy a cinnamon hint in your blueberry muffins, don't be afraid to toss a pinch or two into this mixture. Once baked, give the muffins several minutes to rest in the pan before carefully transferring the hot tops to a wire rack to finish cooling down - they are fairly delicate right out of the oven..

You'll be rewarded with what you expect these tops should be - a bit crunchy, with a crumb-laden, buttery topping that sits upon a very bare base. There are no "stumps" (*wink*) underneath, but what happens to be there is tender, quite moist and chock-full of juicy blueberry bombs.

If you don't have either pan and still want to try out the recipe, divide the batter into a regular muffin tin - just keep on eye on them and check for doneness a couple minutes early, you may also not need all of the topping. Since the batter is on the thick side, you could also try using a large ice cream scoop to drop the batter onto large baking sheets, but they may end up spread out more than up.

My mind did start to wander as we tested these out after dinner... since these are not absurdly large, how about tossing together a marshmallow-y (or maybe even cream cheese) type filling and sticking two tops together, making for a wacky Blueberry Muffin Whoopie Pie? Sounds like a fun experiment to me!

Recipes
Blueberry Muffin Tops