Blueberry Orange Muffins

June and school is out and the summer is starting to feel like the word summer again. The last summer -- summer 2020 -- was not really summer in the experiential sense. We were in the apartment with a nine-week-old and a two-year-old and the city was closed. This summer has different properties. This summer, the park is open and the beach is accessible and restaurants are seating indoors with restrictions and the air has the smell of a city remembering what it is.

Nora at fourteen months is running -- actual running, not the controlled-fall quality of new walking but purposeful forward motion. She runs after Liam. She runs to the kitchen when she hears food preparation beginning. She runs from the bath. The running toward the kitchen and the running from the bath are equal in their conviction. She has strong feelings about food and strong feelings about baths and these feelings are consistent and communicated at volume.

I had coffee with my friend Siobhan this week at an outdoor table -- the first time I'd sat with a friend at a coffee shop in fifteen months. We talked for two hours and I lost track of time in the way you lose track of time when the conversation is the kind you've been missing. She is a teacher. She has had her own version of this year. We have different jobs and we had the same year in different rooms and the room-specific details are different but the underneath is the same: you showed up every day, it cost something, you kept going.

Sitting across from Siobhan at that outdoor table, we both ordered iced coffees and neither of us touched them for the first twenty minutes because we were too busy talking. What I kept thinking, on the walk home, was that the coffee shop deserved more of me than that — that the whole ritual of it, the baked thing on a plate beside the drink, deserved to be savored. These blueberry orange muffins are the thing I made the next morning: bright and a little citrusy and exactly the kind of food that goes with sitting still for a while. I made a full dozen so there would be extras, because that’s the kind of summer I want this to be.

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

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest (from about 1 large orange)
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar, for topping (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 400°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease well with cooking spray.
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 eggs, milk, oil, orange zest, and orange juice until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be tough.
Fold in blueberries. Add the blueberries and fold in with a rubber spatula, using just 2–3 strokes. If using frozen, do not thaw first.
Fill and top. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle turbinado sugar over the tops if using.
Bake. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool. Let muffins cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Blueberry Orange Muffins — Something to Bring to the Table