Blueberry Cake Muffins

My mother has three cookbooks that are my go-to source for any recipe, so when I wanted to make blueberry muffins, I naturally turned to the only one of those books I have at my house. What they had was a blueberry 'cake' muffin recipe. So I tried it once, sent one for my sister who then called and asked where I bought them from. They were that damn good. The shell of an exterior housing a soft cake interior with delicious blueberries, it was amazing.

This weekend I tried it again with my stepdaughter, but this time I used fresh blueberries instead of frozen. I have to admit - in the case of muffins, frozen is best. Maybe it's because blueberries are out of season that the fresh ones lacked in flavour. But for your best bet, I love the Presidents Choice frozen blueberries. You just have to be more careful when you're folding them into the batter, but it's well worth the effort.

As always, I never use real butter in my baking, or I'd bake once a year if at all. Becel works just fine for me in baking. It's what my mother taught me, and to tell you the truth, you can eat baked goods guilt free when you're using heart healthy ingredients. In the same light, I find every recipe book lists way too much sugar for my tastes. I don't know why everyone wants a super sweet... anything. We're not all five years old and there are other flavours I can appreciate. If I eat a blueberry muffin I want to taste blueberries dammit! Not some blue flecked ball of sugar. For this reason, I almost always reduce sugar by a third. This recipe reflects the changes that makes the muffin that I prefer.

BLUEBERRY CAKE MUFFINS (from the 'The New Revised and Updated McCall's Cookbook')
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Flour		2 cups
Sugar		3/4 cup
Milk		1/2 cup
Butter (I use margarine)		1/2 cup
Eggs		2
Baking Powder		1 1/2 tsp
Vanilla Extract		1 tbsp
Salt Blueberries (frozen)		1/4 tsp 1 1/2 cups

Oven & Pans:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Grease pans with a flour/oil slurry. I find this works best for any baking tins. I recommend a tin of 12 for very large muffins, and adding a tin of 6 for medium sized muffins. The muffins in the picture are a full complement of 18. If you make the 12, they are very impressive and look like the store bought muffins my sister believed them to be.

Preparation:

1. In a bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat on high for approximately 4 minutes.
3. Alternately add flour mixture and milk to the beaten sugar and eggs mixture, blending each completely before adding the next. Begin and end with the flour mixture.
4. Using a spatula, carefully fold in blueberries. You want to get the spatula down to the bottom from the side of the bowl and turn up and out, and then fold into the middle.If you're good, and you should be, you should be able to fold in all berries in 4-5 folds. If you are not careful here, you'll turn your entire batter to a purple-grey mess, and it will bake that way, and look verrrry ugly. You want to keep the colour distinct from the blueberries. Also, a mistake here could waterlog the batter you worked so hard to build. You don't want that happening, do you?
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops start to brown.