Classic blueberry muffins

 

These fall into the category of classic muffins, nothing fancy, but very reliable and serviceable. They're the kind you give to people who grew up on muffin mix out of a box or packet, in which case they're comparatively impressive.

Blueberry muffins

From “Best Recipes from America’s Country Inns and Bed & Breakfasts” by Kitty and Lucian Maynard. This particular recipes comes from A. Drummond’s Ranch Bed & Breakfast in the Cheyenne-Laramie area of Wyoming.

Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (or more white flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 cup light olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sour cream
3 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Method
Line 30 muffin cups. Preheat oven to 400.

Combine flours, baking soda and powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until well blended. Gradually add sugar while still beating. Continue beating at low speed and add in oil and vanilla.

Alternate mixing in flour and sour cream into egg mixture until well blended. Fold in blueberries.

Spoon batter into muffin cups about three-fourths of the way full. (The recipe says it makes 30; I made a half batch and wound up with 16 fairly full muffin cups, figuring not quite a ¼ cup of batter per muffin.) Bake 20 minutes.

Rating: Dave said it best: These are really good at being muffins. It was an accurate description of a very well-behaved batch of classic muffins that are a perfectly serviceable carrier for butter. They reached a nice height, had good texture, didn’t have runny blueberry bits, and parted ways with their liners most readily. They aren’t overly sweet, which sometimes muffins are. What they lacked, however, was much in the way of flavor aside from the berries themselves. I kind of thought the sour cream might have added more to the party. Maybe lemon zest would help? So all and all, I’d say they fit the mold of bed and breakfast fare: perfectly serviceable, not necessarily disappointing, but you can nearly always get as good or better at home and you don’t have to make labored conversation with strangers before caffeine has kicked in.