Bakery Blueberry Muffins

Jack likes pancakes.

Let me mention that one more time, the kid likes to eat a pancake.

He asks for them several times a week, but I rarely indulge, except for Saturday mornings. I use a great recipe from the Food Network magazine. On occasion though, I just can't stomach another pancake so I decided to try this recipe for blueberry muffins.

I like blueberry muffins. I like lemon blueberry even more, so I tweaked this recipe a bit to indulge my personal palate. These muffins are beautiful and have a great flavor. I made them in my extra large muffin tins and doubled the recipe so that I could have a solid dozen. I cooked them longer because they were in the larger tin, but I don't recall how much longer...just keep checking on them until they are cooked all the way through.

The original recipe is taken from Tasty Kitchen (if you haven't been there yet...come on, really?).

• ½ cups Shortening, Butter Flavored Is Fine Too
• 1 cup Sugar, Make That A Heaping Cup
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 whole Eggs
• ½ cups Buttermilk, Or Vinegar Soured Milk
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 2 cups Flour
• 1-½ cup Blueberries, Frozen (They Keep Their Shape Better If You Add Frozen)

Preparation Instructions

First, preheat your oven to 450F. Completely grease a standard-sized 12 cup muffin tin, including the top edges between the cups.

Cream generously the shortening (butter flavored is fine too) and sugar, then add the vanilla, eggs and buttermilk.

In a separate bowl, mix the salt, baking powder and flour.

Gently fold blueberries into flour mixture as to not break up the berries. Then add this to the creamed shortening/sugar mixture.

Please don’t overmix or you’ll have hockey pucks. Less is more!

Fill your muffin cups all the way to the top. Mound them up good. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Your batter should make about 10-11 muffins.

Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar for some sparkle

Bake at 450F for 5 full minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F and bake about another 20 minutes. Keep an eye on them so they don’t overbake. The initial 5-minute baking at a high temperature will help them make a high dome. Shhh! That’s a bakery secret.

I like to cool these off then put them in a large Ziploc bag and let them rest overnight. For some reason they seem even better the next day.