The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook: Lemon-Glazed Blueberry Muffins

My husband bought this The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook (2001) at a used bookstore quite awhile ago, and I hadn’t made anything from it yet. So I sat down and looked through it the other day, and it’s full of good stuff. As I’m sure most of you know, America’s Test Kitchen is a real kitchen in Boston where they test recipes that they publish in Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and demonstrate on their PBS show. Both the magazine and the show focus on “finding the best and most full-proof methods for preparing home-cooked food.” Each chapter of this cookbook, which includes headings such as “Simple Sandwiches,” “All-American Cookout,” and “Fajitas and Margaritas,” includes a few recipes with variations and reviews of the best equipment and ingredients for making the recipes.

I took this recipe from the “Muffins & Scones” chapter. The Ekco Baker’s Secret muffin tin took top honors. They also discovered that you don’t need to use fancy butter for baking, just make sure it’s fresh and unsalted. I have to say this recipe, which is pretty detailed, does produce a really good blueberry muffin. I suggest you give it a try!

Makes 12 muffins

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 1/4 cups sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl until combined. Whisk egg in second medium bowl about 20 seconds. Add sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogeneous, about 30 seconds; add melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.
3. Add frozen berries to dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add sour cream mixture and fold with spatula until batter comes together and berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds.
4. Use ice cream scoop to drop batter into greased muffin tin. Bake until light golden brown and toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating pan from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool muffins on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
5. While muffins are baking, mix 1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon zest and 1/2 cup sugar in small bowl. Bring 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat; simmer until mixture is thick and syrupy.
6. After muffins are cooled, brush tops with glaze, then, working one at a time, dip tops of muffins in lemon sugar.

My notes: These are some of the best blueberry muffins that I’ve ever made. I love the combination of lemon and blueberry, but you might want to try the ginger-glazed or cinnamon-sugar dipped version. Only two small notes, my blueberries did tend to sink to the bottom even though I coated them in the dry ingredients first. Not sure why that is. I also got a pretty purple-y batter. I probably needed to use a lighter touch when mixing the batter.