Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping —rsquo; The Kind of Baking That Earns Eleven Strangers’ Hearts

December. The tree is up. Same dollar store tree, sixth year running. Chloe's paper star on top — she's offered to make a new one every year and I've declined every year because the original is perfect and perfection doesn't need upgrading. The blinking lights. Elijah's ornament from last year (his handprint, smaller then, one year old). This year's addition: a photo ornament of all three kids that Mama had made at Walmart — Chloe, Jayden, and Elijah sitting on a bench, looking at the camera with the forced smiles of children who have been told to smile by a grandmother who does not accept natural expressions in photographs. The photo ornament hangs next to the paper star and the handprint and the fire truck ornament Jayden made in pre-K and the tree is a museum of six years of Mitchell family life, growing one ornament at a time.

Christmas planning: Terrence for a week (Dec 20-27). Kevin is coming Christmas Eve through the 27th. Amber is staying in Chattanooga this year — the twins' first Christmas, she wants it at home, which is right and which I understand because first Christmases belong to the home they happen in. Mama, as always. The apartment will be full again. Not eleven — fewer, but full. Full is a feeling, not a number.

I started a Sarah's Table Instagram account. INSTAGRAM. I posted one photo: Earline's cornbread in the cast iron skillet, on the stove, with the overhead light making it golden. Caption: "Sarah's Table — Nashville comfort food, coming January 2022. The cornbread has no sugar. Don't argue." Twenty-seven likes in the first day. From: Wanda, Brian, Oliver, Danielle, Mama (she has Instagram — Kevin set it up for her and she uses it exclusively to like family photos and post blurry pictures of Elijah), several church friends, and eleven strangers. Eleven strangers liked a photo of my cornbread. Eleven people I don't know saw my food and pressed a heart. The hearts are small. The hearts are everything. Sarah's Table has an audience. Small. But real. And growing.

Chloe asked to be Sarah's Table's "social media manager." She's nine. She wants to manage social media. I said: "You're nine." She said: "I know how to take food photos, Mama. The lighting has to be from the side. Never from above." She's right. Side lighting for food photography. She learned it from a YouTube video. My nine-year-old knows more about food photography than I do. I hired her. Unpaid. Her title is: Chief Photo Officer. She accepted with the gravitas of a Fortune 500 executive.

The cornbread that launched Sarah’s Table didn’t need sugar and it didn’t need an explanation—it just needed to exist, golden in the skillet, overhead light doing its job. That’s the whole philosophy: make the thing right, put it where people can see it, and let it speak. These blueberry muffins with crumb topping are the next page of that same story—the kind of baking Earline would have on the counter without fanfare, the kind Chloe would photograph from the side because she’s right about the lighting. Eleven strangers pressed a heart for cornbread. This one’s for the twelve.

Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 37 min | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

• Crumb Topping
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
• Muffins
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw if frozen)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease each cup well with butter or nonstick spray.
2. Make the crumb topping. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Add the cold butter pieces and use your fingertips or a fork to work the butter in until the mixture looks like coarse, damp crumbs. Refrigerate while you make the batter.
3. Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
4. Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the milk, sour cream, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
5. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold gently with a rubber spatula until just combined—a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be dense.
6. Fold in the blueberries. Add the blueberries and fold them in with two or three slow strokes. If using frozen berries, work quickly so they don’t bleed into the batter.
7. Fill the cups. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Remove the crumb topping from the refrigerator and sprinkle generously over each muffin.
8. Bake. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a crumb or two attached.
9. Cool. Let muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Best eaten warm, but they hold well at room temperature for up to two days—if they last that long.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 248 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 39g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 190mg