My Love Affair with Muffins

Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man? Oh, I know the muffin man!

Here, let me introduce myself-

My name is Jasmine, and I LOVE muffins! I have often said that my favorite food invention is the combination of bread and sugar (cupcakes, quick breads, cakes...) but more than any other sweet, fluffy bread, I love the taste and texture of good muffins. There is truly something about a muffin that I almost can't put my finger on... it is the way the top will give way under your fingers and tear off to reveal the perfectly soft center, and the way it smells as you bring it to your lips. Or maybe it is the way it feels against your lips, soft and plush and a little buttery. I love how it melts on your tongue, back into the dough that it was before you baked it. The word muffin actually comes from the French word "moufflet" which means soft. It cannot be described any better way!

I have to admit that the fluffy bready texture is my favorite thing about a muffin, but of course the reason muffins are so popular is all of the fantastic flavors and that wonderful sweet taste! Blueberry (my personal favorite), banana nut, cinnamon apple and anything else you can dream up. The possibilities are endless when it comes to these palm-sized treats. But muffins did not start out that way. Muffins started out at a yeast-leavened bread that was not particularly sweet. In fact, the word muffin originally referred to what we know now to be an english muffin. Those disk-like little breads with holes that are delicious with butter and a cup of tea; that is what they were baked for- tea! There really was a man called a muffin man back in the 19th century in England who would carry muffins on the street while ringing a bell and selling his treats at tea time. I love this image of a little man carrying muffins and ringing a bell. I can't help but picture cobbled streets and quaint little cafes with trendy, thin women sipping tea wearing gawdy pearl jewelry.

English muffins traveled to America along with other food recipes, but they were not oh so very popular until the 1970's and 80's. It took that long! Americans took the recipe for muffins and tweaked it in the way that we Americans do... add chemicals and lots of sugar! It was in the 1970's that less and less women were baking at home and more were taking up post in the work force. This started a trend in mixes and foods you can grab on the go. There was also a rise in gourmet coffee shops and healthier food. The recipes of muffins changed to a bread that was leavened with baking powder rather than yeast and they were baked in muffin pans (or cupcake pan, they are not sure which sweet treat came first). Ironically, the healthy food movement caused muffins to grow 3 times their size in these pans! And to keep the muffins fresh longer so that they could be sold in the new trendy coffee shops, there was a lot more sugar and fat added. People still imagined that muffins were better for them than the donuts or bagels that were the other breakfast or treat options, so they would opt for the muffin, even choosing a carrot or blueberry in hopes of getting some healthy nutrients. However, if you are a calorie counter then you know that a muffin should be an occasional sugary treat and not an everyday breakfast as the people of the 70's and 80's were led to believe. There isn't much about the muffin that is actually healthy, but who cares when they are so delicious?

After my hubby bought me a giant muffin pan (if the regular muffin is 3 times the normal size of a muffin then the giant ones must be 10 times the size! No wonder I can't lose these last 5 pounds!) I made it my business to find the very best muffin recipe out there. After sampling and and scouring the internet I had narrowed it down to 2 recipes. Both of them claimed to be the very best muffins you have ever eaten, and they each had a completely different batter. We did a taste test and I ended up coming up with my own recipe that combines the two! Careful, these muffins are not for the faint of heart or the diabetic among us. I have a very large sweet tooth and the batter is almost cake-like... yummm.

Jasmine's Blueberry Muffins

1/2 cup butter
2 cups flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup blueberries (I use frozen)

topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift dry ingredients into a small bowl. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs. Add the milk and flour. Fold in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups all the way and top with the crumb topping. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes

to make crumb topping: combine all ingredients together with a fork. you don't need to mush up the butter, just leave it cubed and evenly distribute it on the muffins.


Enjoy by ripping off the crunchy, sweet top and tearing apart the fluffy bottom; eating it in soft little pieces with or without butter. Then eat the top in little orgasmic bites and curse the muffin gods for making this muffin go straight to your jeans and adding to the muffin top on your hips.