Blueberry Muffin Tops

I made Megan teach me one of her recipes. I use the word "recipe" loosely — Megan's cooking repertoire is essentially a survival manual: cereal, PB&J, scrambled eggs, and what she calls "teacher mac and cheese," which is Kraft from a box with cut-up hot dogs mixed in. She learned this from her college roommate and has never questioned its nutritional value.

So I made her stand in the kitchen and walk me through teacher mac and cheese. She boiled the pasta. She mixed in the orange powder. She cut up the hot dogs with a butter knife because she couldn't find the chef's knife (it was in the knife block, where it always is). She mixed it all together and served it with a flourish and said, "Presentation is everything."

It was terrible. It was also the best thing I've eaten in weeks because she made it with her hands and her face was so proud and she genuinely thought the hot dogs elevated it. They did not. But love is not about hot dogs. Love is about watching someone make something bad with complete confidence and eating every bite and meaning it when you say, "This is great, babe."

At the brewery, the session IPA is fermenting. I'm also helping plan the Lakefront summer concert series — they do live music in the beer garden every Friday and I'm involved in the food pairing side, recommending which beers go with which food trucks. This is the part of the job that reminds me why I love it — not just making beer, but putting it in context, connecting it to food, to music, to summer nights by the river.

June pierogi challenge: strawberry and farmer's cheese. The Wisconsin strawberries are in at the farmers market. Small, sweet, nothing like the giant tasteless ones from the grocery store. I macerated them lightly with sugar and lemon, mixed them with fresh farmer's cheese, and filled the pierogi. Boiled, then pan-fried gently in butter. Dusted with powdered sugar. They are summer in a dumpling. Babcia's blueberry pierogi walked so these could run.

Every good thing has a predecessor — and when I dusted those strawberry pierogi with powdered sugar and took the first bite, I thought immediately of Babcia’s blueberry version, the one that made me believe fruit had a place inside dough in the first place. These blueberry muffin tops are my nod to that legacy: same bright, jammy fruit energy, same dusting of sweetness, same feeling of summer captured in something small and golden. Consider them the muffin pan’s answer to the dumpling pot.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 14 min | Total Time: 24 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 large egg
1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon coarse sugar, for topping

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease a muffin top pan.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, egg, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — do not overmix. The batter will be thick.
Fold in blueberries. Gently fold in the fresh blueberries, taking care not to crush them.
Portion and top. Scoop heaping 2-tablespoon mounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Flatten each mound slightly with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar.
Bake. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until the edges are golden and the tops are just set. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.
Cool and serve. Allow muffin tops to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Blueberry Muffin Tops — For the Babcia Who Started It All