Yields 12 standard muffins.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position to heat oven to 400ºF.
2. Prepare muffin tins.
3. Bring 1 cup fresh blueberries and all dried blueberries to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat.
4. Cook, stirring frequently and pressing blueberries against the side of the pot, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened, about five minutes.
5. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
6. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in the large bowl. Set aside.
7. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Slowly whisk in melted butter and oil.
8. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until combined.
9. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in remaining one cup blueberries.
10. Gently fold in flour mixture until just moistened. Batter will be very lumpy.
11. Using a large spoon, divide half of the batter equally among the 12 muffin cups. Cups should be about a third filled.
12. Place a heaping teaspoon of berry mixture on top of batter.
13. Scoop remaining batter on top of berry filling.
14. Using a bamboo skewer, gently swirl berry filling into batter.
15. Sprinkle turbinado sugar on top of the muffins.
16. Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17 to 19 minutes.
17. Cool muffins in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool for five minutes more before serving.

P.S. For more amazing recipes, you should really go get a membership at Cook’s Illustrated. It’s totally, totally worth it.

These muffins require no sales pitch. I will tell you anyway that they are fluffy, flavorful, and easy to make with or without an electric mixer.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350º standard / 325º convection.
2. Prepare standard-sized muffin tin with grease or papers.
3. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Whisk to evenly mix. Set aside.
4. Cream butter and sugar until well incorporated. You do not need to mix until fluffy and light. With muffins, it’s OK (maybe even preferable) to leave the mixture a bit uneven.
5. Beat in eggs and milk. Again, don’t mix as much as you would if you were making cookies.
6. Add flour mixture and, using a rubber spatula, fold gently into wet mixture. Leave some dry spots in the batter.
7. Add pumpkin and continue to fold until the batter is mostly even.
8. Add cranberries and give the batter one or two more folds.
9. Using a measuring cup, large spoon, or portion scoop, fill muffin cups about ¾ full.
10. Bake until set: a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center of the muffin will emerge clean. This morning, my batch took 35 minutes to bake.
11. Remove pan from oven and allow to cool a few moments before removing muffins.

I am an occasional beta-tester of recipes for America’s Test Kitchen. Those geniuses over in Massachusetts work up a recipe, and then they e-mail it out to folks like me who’ve volunteered to make the recipe at home and report back. Some months later, something very similar appears in Cook’s Illustrated magazine. It’s pretty neat.

To my great delight, an ATK recipe for Best Blueberry Muffins appeared in my inbox a few days ago for testing. It being August and all, I have quite a lot of berries loitering about in the refrigerator and I’ve been making blueberry muffins about once every ten days, searching for The One. The Universe – heck, the internet – is overstuffed with blueberry muffin recipes, many of which, I have found, aren’t worth the effort it takes a person to chew and swallow them.

Yesterday I shopped for the few ingredients Best Blueberry Muffins called for that weren’t already kicking around at home and this morning I tried out the recipe from ATK.

I can’t say that I have ever had a more delicious blueberry muffin. Though they were more work than your average blueberry muffin, the extra five minutes and three dirty dishes are definitely worth the result. These muffins were tender on the inside and absolutely packed with blueberries, yet they hold their shape and have a pleasant texture on the teeth and tongue. The sprinkle of demera sugar on top makes a great, golden, sweet crunch on the muffin tops, leaving the rest of the muffin more blueberry-and-vanilla-y, rather than just plain sweet like so many inferior breakfast pastries.

It would be cosmically unfair (and arguably illegal) for me to share the recipe with you, and for that I apologize. Whether you are into super fantastic blueberry muffin recipes or not, I enthusiastically recommend Cook’s Illustrated magazine – I hear that the television show is really good, too. They’re geniuses over there in Massachusetts, just geniuses.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Combine sugars, flour, bran, soda and raisins (or other delicious thing. If a wet thing, combine in step 2 instead.)
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, juice, oil, molasses (honey/vanilla) and eggs.
3. Combine wet and dry.
4. Portion into prepared muffin tins.
5. Bake @350º until set.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Mix oats, milk and sugar. Let sit five minutes.
2. Stir in cooled melted butter and eggs.
3. Mix in dry ingredients until just combined.
4. Fold in nuts.
5. Spoon into muffin cups and bake at 350º F. until an inserted toothpick emerges clean.