Take 2: Bakery style blueberry muffins

 

This recipe owes its roots to a department store in Boston, apparently a dining room tradition cherished by regulars, much like the popovers at the restaurant on the top floor of the former Dayton's in Minneapolis. 

One wonders how much of that devotion is to the remembered ritual as opposed to the treat itself. I remember feeling so grown up when I got to go to the Younkers tea room when we'd go shopping for my back-to-school wardrobe. Funny thing, though: I don't remember the food at all, just the impression of elegance. That and the gloved elevator operators.

Famous Department Store blueberry muffins
From King Arthur Baking, a clone of muffins served in the erstwhile Jordan Marsh department store in Boston.

Ingredients
8 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar, plus ¼ cup for topping.
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
½ cup milk
2½ cups fresh blueberries

Method
Preheat oven to 375. Line or grease 12 regular size muffin tins.

In a large bowl beat butter and 1 cup sugar until well combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the baking powder, salt and vanilla.Add flour alternately with the milk, beating to just combined.

Mash ½ cup of the blueberries. Fold in mashed and whole blueberries.

Spoon ¼ cupfuls into prepared muffin tins. (They will be very full and definitely result in the "muffin top" style muffins.) Sprinkle remaining sugar on top. Bake for 30 minutes until light golden brown and they pass the toothpick test.

 

Rating: I can see why they were favorites. Out of the ones I made in all this round of testing, they might be mine.

 

So having found a really good recipe for bakery-style muffins, why try another? The combination of cream cheese, buttermilk and cake flour intrigued me to try this one as well.

I would say these two recipes show there's a fairly wide latitude in what constitutes a bakery muffin. One thing both of these have in common is some sort of topping. The other thing is that I'd say they're generally a step above what you get at most bakeries.

Bakery-style blueberry muffins

From “Homestead Recipes” by Amanda Rettke, as published in the Star Tribune. Note: The recipe specifies that the cream cheese, butter, eggs and buttermilk be at room temperature, so allow a bit of lead time.

Ingredients
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter, at room temperature
1½ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cups cake flour
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 cup blueberries

Topping
½ cup (1 stick) butter
¾ cup flour
⅓ cup powdered sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line or grease 15 muffin cups.

Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Gradually stir in sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well in between each addition. Mix in vanilla. Add flour and mix until just combined. Fold in blueberries. Divide mixture among the 15 muffin cups.

For topping, mix together butter, flour and powdered sugar. Sprinkle mixture over muffins. Bake for 27 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with no wet batter clinging to it. They do not get particularly brown.

Rating: These get good marks for being a very light batter, which helps offset the density of the cream cheese. Very moist.  My only nit was that the topping didn't stick to the top particularly well, although in retrospect, I wonder if I brought that on myself in my rush to try to get these ready to take to book group. In rereading the recipe, I honestly can't remember if I put in the right amount of butter in the topping and used half a stick instead of half a cup. So I'll have to give that part a pass and try them again to make sure. I wouldn't mind.These have the plus that they taste fine at room temperature, which I can't say about most muffins.