When Life Gives You Blueberries...

After seeing a recipe for blueberry muffins on one of my favorite cooking shows, my mom and I decided to experiment and adapt the recipe to test our muffin-making skills.  Thus, the best blueberry muffins ever (if I do say so myself) were created.  After filling a muffin tin full of the batter, there was a bit left over.  We didn't want all of that deliciousness to go to waste, so we made a cake.  We poured half of the left over batter into a slightly greased cake pan, sprinkled the lemon sugar and jam on top of it, poured the rest of the rest of the batter into the pan, and topped it with the remaining sugar and jam.  I personally like the cake better than the muffins, but you can't go wrong either way.  You know what they say... "When life gives you blueberries, bake some muffins!"

Blueberry Muffins with a Zing

Jam:

1 cup blueberries

1 Tablespoon sugar

Combine over medium heat until it yields 1/4 cup of liquid.  Cool to room temperature.

Topping:

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

Mix the sugar and lemon zest.

Batter:

2 1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 1/8 cup sugar

4 Tablespoons melted light margarine

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients.  Whisk the eggs and the sugar for 45 seconds.  Mix wet into dry until the batter becomes lumpy.  Mix in the blueberries.  Scoop batter into a muffin tin with ice cream scoop.  Put 1 teaspoon of jam into the middle of each muffin.  Swirl with a chopstick in a figure 8 motion.  Spoon sugar on top.  Bake on the upper middle oven rack for 18 minutes, turning after 9 minutes.  Allow to cool and remove from muffin tin with a plastic knife.  **(There should be enough batter for 12 muffins and a small cake.  Bake the cake for 35 minutes, turning half way through.)**