My dad does not like lemons. To the point where he won't eat anything that has even a trace of lemon in it. He also despises pudding, but that's a story for another day.
This lemon hatred had a severe impact on my childhood. See, I grew up in the north and in the north we have these tiny navy blue gems called wild blueberries. Oh I know what you're all thinking: "But Laura, blueberries are available in every single grocery store in the country." Let me stop you right there. You've never had a blueberry until you've had a wild blueberry. They are tiny, probably 1/10th the size of what you find in-store, and bursting with juicy flavour that's out-of-this-world good. And the best part? Like the name suggests, they grow wild. So you don't have to spend $5+ on a pint, you can just go pick a basket or two yourself.
Late July to mid-August is prime blueberry pickin' season, and every year I would go pick baskets full and my grandmother would bake them into these fabulously moist muffins with a crunchy sweet lemon-sugar topping, which, in my opinion, was the best part. She would always send them home with me, but my dad would never eat them because of the lemon-sugar. And then all of a sudden she stopped making them with lemon sugar, and my mom also started to bake them, but again, without the lemon sugar. This went on for quite a some time until I finally had enough of this lemon-blacklisting and I put my foot down, well, as much as I could as a kid, and demanded politely requested the return of the lemon sugar. I won a half-victory, not enough if you ask me.
But now, as an adult, I can make them with as much lemon love as I want. Sadly I no longer have time to pick wild blueberries, nor do I live in wild-blueberry country anymore, but every time my mom comes to visit me in the summer she brings me a big basket of them. I eat them out of hand, on yogurt, in cereal, and then when they are about to go bad, I freeze the rest of them for baking into lemon-sugar topped blueberry muffins. And oh do I ever. In fact, top them muffins with lemon-sugar before I bake them and after.
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Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins
Recipe from: Joy of Baking
Makes: 12 muffins
Ingredients
Muffins:
2 1/2 cups (325
g) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1/2 tsp (2 mL) baking soda
1/4 tsp (4 mL)
salt
1 lemon, zested
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk
1/2
cup (125 mL) canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 to 2 cups
(375-500 mL) frozen blueberries
Topping:
1 lemon, zested
1/2 cup (125 mL) sugar
To make
1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Grease or line a muffin tin. In a small bowl, mix together topping.
2. In a large bowl,
whisk together the egg, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and zest.
3. In another large bowl. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. zest. Gently fold in the blueberries. Add the buttermilk mixture and fold until just combined.
4. Divide batter into prepared muffin tin. Sprinkle tops with about about 1/4 of the lemon sugar. Bake on middle rack of oven until a toothpick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean, about 20 mins. Sprinkle remaining lemon-sugar overtop muffins. Let cool in pan for 10
min. then remove muffins to a cooling rack to cook completely.
