Battle: Blueberry Muffins
One of the things that hurts my heart is how hard it is to find good recipes on the internet, which in turn, deters people from cooking altogether, or worse, results in people cooking bad or mediocre dishes.
An example of this: There are approximately one million blueberry muffin recipes out there for you to sift through. That’s annoying to do and also, who has the time? Because this is a common issue, I like to start a recipe search with outlets I trust and have had good luck with in the past. In the case of blueberry muffins, Bon Appetit (specifically BA’s Best) and NYT Cooking rose to the top.
Why are you making so many muffins: I always seem to feel a need to make blueberry muffins for the same reason - I’ve purchased blueberries for pancakes or waffles, used a small amount and want to make the most of what’s left. I did this a couple of months ago with BA’s Best Blueberry Muffins, and I did it again this week. Only this time, I opted for an NYT Cooking recipe.
Upon making both, I realized these recipes are actually really different in composition and method. I will say, they both turned out well and you can’t go wrong picking either one of these. However, in my opinion, BA’s Best Blueberry Muffins are superior.
What I liked and didn’t like about each recipe
BA’s Best Blueberry Muffins by Rick Martinez
Like: Lemon. Blueberry and lemon are so beautiful together, it only makes sense to use the juice and zest in muffins to brighten and enhance the fruit’s flavor.
Like: This recipe has you fold blueberries into the batter, but also place some on top of each muffin before baking. This not only looks great, but also guarantees each muffin is getting some action.
Like: To sift or whisk? I find whisking dry ingredients easier and faster. I also think I prefer the end texture. This recipe has you whisk, while below has you sift and it makes a big difference.
Like: Adding yogurt and using melted butter. I think this combination made the texture great and kept these bad boys moist (sorry!) for a long while.
NYT Cooking’s (Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins)
Like: It was simple and straightforward from ingredients to method. Nothing weird or extra and blueberries aside, all stuff you likely already have available.
Like/Dislike: The texture was very classic - what you’d expect from a factory-made muffin. I mean this in a good way, though I found mine to be a bit dry after the first day. This recipe uses a common batter technique by creaming softened butter and sugar, like for pound cake, which is why it ended up this way.
Like: It made exactly 12. I HATE when recipes require you to make batches and some of the other NYT Cooking recipes did this. A muffin pan has 12 cups, let’s just make only that amount and if you choose to double it, that’s easy too.
Dislike: I used a nonstick pan and nonstick spray, but a lot of my muffins got stuck. The recipe did say to use cupcake liners, but we all know I didn’t have those.
Top: NYT Cooking | Bottom: Bon Appetit
