Fresh Fruit Muffin Recipe

Finally, I have the recipe for the Fresh Fruit Muffins. I made these one last time last week, just to make sure that I was satisfied. I was.

A couple of notes: First, I found that if I used too much fruit, I couldn’t get the muffins out of the pan. About a cup of frozen blueberries was just about right. If you want to use more fruit in your muffins, I’d recommend using paper liners. Secondly, keep the size of the fruit smallish. If you are using larger fruits, like strawberries, I would cut the fruit into small pieces. Third, I only tested this recipe with blueberries (except for the batch with mixed berries, including huge strawberries and blackberries, hence tip #2) but any fruit, as long as it isn’t too wet, should work well. And finally, I liked the texture that topping the muffins with either a crumb topping or a streusel gives. This step is certainly optional.

Recipe after the jump.

Fresh Fruit Muffins
Based on the recipe from Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Zest of one lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla extact
2 eggs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh or frozen fruit
Streusel or crumb topping (recipe below)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Either spray a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick spray, or line the tin with paper liners and spray the top with nonstick spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix the brown sugar, granulated sugar and lemon zest. Using your fingers, rub the zest with the sugars until fragrant. To the sugar mixture add the vanilla extract, eggs, melted butter, oil and buttermilk and whisk until everything is incorporated and smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until no streaks of flour remain. The batter should be very lumpy. Add the fruit and mix just until incorporated. The batter should still be quite lumpy.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill the muffin cups almost full with batter. Top each muffin with a generous amount of crumb topping. Bake the muffins for 21-23 minutes in the middle of the oven. Cool the muffin tin on a rack for 15 minutes before removing the muffins from the tin.

Crumb Topping
From Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook

Note: Half of this recipe is enough crumb topping for 12 muffins. I also increased the amount of cinnamon from 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon. If you don’t like cinnamon as much as I do, use the original amount.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
A pinch of kosher salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4″ pieces

Combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl and mix. Scatter the butter over the dry ingredients, and, using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture is coarse and crumbly.