Currently baking out of Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie

Versions four and five of my fresh fruit muffins went from complicated to simple, but got better as a result.

For the fourth attempt at tweaking this recipe, I increased the maple syrup to 1/4 cup and decreased the amount of milk by the same amount. Once again, I got nicely domed tops with a tender, sweet crumb. The maple flavor was subtle and went nicely with the blueberries. As I was considering this version though, I realized how complicated it had become. I was using two different dairy products (milk and sour cream), oil and butter, and three different sweetners (white sugar, brown sugar and maple syrup). There had to be an easier way.

So, with the next version I simplified. I used all buttermilk instead of the sour cream and milk and I nixed the maple syrup. The flavor it added wasn’t enough to justify the extra ingredient. I also increased the white sugar and the oil a bit. This version was good. I didn’t miss the maple syrup and the muffins were just sweet enough. I kept the struesel topping as I liked the added crunch it gave the muffins.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that as I was researching other muffin recipes after this fifth attempt, I came across a recent Cooks Illustrated blueberry muffin recipe. Lo and behold, their recipe and my recipe are strikingly similar. They do some other things to increase the blueberry flavor, like add a homemade blueberry jam, but the basic muffin recipes are very close.

No matter. I’m going to tweak this latest version once again and will post the results soon.