These Blueberry Malibu muffins are just left of center in the nicest way. The coconut oil comes across mainly as a scent, but also as a subtle, background flavor. It’s the spiced blueberries, though that are the main attraction: deep and mysterious. The high hits of the lemon sugar balance it out.
Best the day of, but pretty good for several days.
Ingredients
- Lemon-Sugar Topping
2⅜ oz. (1/3 cup) sugar
1½ tsp (packed) finely grated zest (from 1 lemon)
- Muffins
10 oz. (2 cups) fresh blueberries, divided
8 oz. (1 cup + 2 Tbs + 1 tsp) sugar, divided
3/4 oz. (4½ tsp) spiced rum
2 oz. (4 Tbs, or 1/2 stick) butter
2 oz. (4 Tbs) virgin coconut oil
12½ oz. (2½ cups) AP flour
2½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
8 oz. (1 cup) buttermilk
1½ tsp vanilla
Directions
- Make the topping
- Stir the sugar and lemon zest together in a small bowl until quite thoroughly combined; set aside.
- Make the muffins
- Place 1 cup of the blueberries, 1 teaspoon of the sugar, and the rum into a small saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, mashing the berries with a wooden spoon and stirring constantly, until the berries have broken down, and the mixture is thickened to the point of nearly being dry, and reduced to about 1/4-cup, 11 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes. (Immediately soak the pot in hot, soapy water, because it’s going to look like a mess, but it will practically clean itself if you soak it.)
- Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 425°F. Line a standard-size muffin pan with paper liners. Melt the butter and oil together in a microwave; allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk the remaining 7¾ oz. sugar and the eggs together in a medium bowl until thick and homogeneous, about 45 seconds on medium-high speed (setting 4 out of 7). Slowly whisk in the butter mixture until combined. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using a flexible spatula, toss the berries with the flour. Then, fold in the egg mixture. Fold just until there only the tiniest bits of dry flour remain, mainly attached to the berries. (The batter will be very lumpy with a few spots of dry flour; do not overmix. If you start breaking the berries down into the batter, you’ve gone too far.)
- Using a 1/3-cup measure, divide the batter equally among the prepared muffin cups. (The batter should completely fill the cups and mound slightly). Spoon 1 teaspoon of the cooked berry mixture into the center of each mound of batter, pushing it into the batter. Using a chopstick or skewer, gently swirl the berry filling into the batter using a figure-eight motion. Sprinkle the lemon sugar evenly over the muffins. (You may not use every bit of the sugar, but you should not have much leftover.)
- Bake until the edges of the muffin tops are golden and just firm 17-21 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Cool the muffins in the pan just until they’re not too hot to be handled, then transfer them to a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- If your oven has five rack positions, the second one from the top is the upper-middle, I presume.
Social Learning
As with all blueberry muffins, these are best the day they’re made. However, whereas most blueberry muffins are mere shadows of themselves the next day, these taste great. But the sugar topping, once you store the muffins, will become sticky. The third or fourth day, they start to taste like the kind of muffin you might buy in a convenience store, from a shelf next to the Twinkies. If you like that sort of thing: bonus. Otherwise, eat these up within the first few days.
The Backstory
This story is called “always use an oven thermometer.” I’m going to omit a lot of background details; leave a comment if you have questions or are curious.
I found myself this summer needing to convert a used but completely serviceable (and downright respectable) gas oven to propane, because I spend the summers in the woods, far from any natural gas utility. Most ovens come with conversion kits, but I couldn’t find one for this one. In a fit of despair, I called the guys who supply me with propane, hoping they’d have better kit-sleuthing skills than I do. Instead, they suggested I haul the thing down to their shop, where they’d do a custom conversion. I’m completely pleased with their help, and with the fact that I didn’t have to buy a new oven. However…
The thing is a monster. The lowest flame you can get on the stovetop is something around medium, in my estimation. No worries, though. I bought a couple of flame diffusers, which I’ve always wanted to have anyway. But the oven … in order to get it to 425°F, I had to set it to 375°F. Yikes!
But this is merely an extreme form of a very common occurrance. If you love to bake, you should at some point verify the temperature accuracy of your oven. Many ovens aren’t precise. Even if you make adjustments to get the 350°F setting to come out correctly, that won’t guarantee that the oven will maintain accuracy across a range of temperatures. You’ve got to have an oven thermometer.
| A Decent Stove | My Crazy Propane Stove |
|---|---|
| “Lo” = lowest heat | |
| “2” = low heat | |
| LOWEST + FLAME DIFFUSER = medium low | |
| “4” = medium heat | LOWEST |
| HALFWAY + FLAME DIFFUSER = medium high | |
| “6” = high heat | HALFWAY |
| “8” = very high heat | |
| “hi” = highest heat | |
| HIGHEST |
My crazy propane stove’s knobs doen’t have numbered settings on them. And although it’s possible to position the burner knobs to a theoretically infinite number of positions, they seem to be responsive only crudely, and not in a linear fashion. There seem to be three useful positions: lowest, highest, and halfway inbetween.
Blueberry Malibu Muffins
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. References: “Blueberry Muffins,” in The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook: 2001-2015. (Brookline, MA: America’s Test Kitchen, 2014), 641-642. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #14 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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Molto golosi questi muffin😋😋😋😋😋
Federica recently posted…Biscotti Uzbeki
Thanks so much, Federica!
Sono ghiotta di mirtilli, belli e golosi questi muffins!
Thank you!
These muffins are fit for the queen! Love the sprinkle of lemon sugar topping too.
angiesrecipes recently posted…Belgian Endive Kumquat Salad with Pomegranate and Feta
Thank you, Angie!
I am bookmarking this until I purchase some spiced rum. They sound fabulous,
anne h recently posted…Fed___Like it or Not
Thanks Anne!
These do look amazing — and the minute I read that the tops become sticky, I knew exactly what you meant. Of the story? Eat them all the first day! I am very lucky that my (electric) oven is extremely accurate on temperature. At least now you know how to gauge what you need to do for good baking.
Thanks, David! I think I’ve got the oven figured out, finally!
je croquerai bien dans un de tes superbe muffins qui ont l’air délicieux!
josette recently posted…coquelets normand
Thank you, Josette!
The muffins look delicious, and that’s an interesting stove project. Hope it works well for you.
Thank you, Judy!
Deliziosi con i mirtilli!
Thank you, Daniela!
Yikes, your oven problem sounds so complicated Jeff. I hope it works out. summer in the woods sounds ideal. Treating your blueberries to special treatment with spiced rum sounds perfect and delicious. No problem here eating them all in one day. thanks for another inspirational muffin recipe.
Pauline McNee recently posted…The Typical Foods that Australians Love to Eat
Thanks, Pauline! I think I’ve finally got the oven figured out.
woow this is yummy
Thank you, Iza!
Yum Jeff! I love the addition of rum and coconut oil!
Thank you!
I for one would like to read the backstory on the oven temperature! These muffins look amazing, so full of blueberries. They would make a wonderful addition to any breakfast table.
Eva Taylor recently posted…Bûche de Noël revisited
It’s a long story! I’ll see if I can write it out and attach it to this message. Thanks!
Delicious looking blueberry muffins, Jeff. I’ll for sure have no problem eating them the first day, so they’re at their best. 😉 Even though my oven is only a few years old, I have to use an inside thermometer to be sure it’s calibrated. It’s never been the actual temp I set it too. ~Valentina
P.S. Love the spiced rum in this recipe — so unusual for a muffin.
Valentina recently posted…Pan-Seared Sea Bass with Lemon Pepper Sauce
So often they’re not.
The blueberries, I stumbled on that idea in a sandwich recipe, actually, that turned out to be a distaster – the blueberries were wonderful, but the sandwich was all wrong. I knew I had to save them for another context, and these muffins seemed like the perfect place. The rum is wonderful in the blueberries.
I love spiced rum but can’t take coconut oil 🙂 The texture, the flavour – uurrgghhh.. but anyway love a muffin. I too have an oven thermometer and wouldn’t be without it. Our oven is a monster, and i only just very recently found out that the oven fan needs to be on ALL THE TIME! That’s a gas oven for you.
Thanks, Sherry. It’d be easy to eliminate the coconut from this muffin. There’s aren’t pieces of coconut in it, only virgin coconut oil. But if you use coconut oil that is not virgin, it won’t have any coconut taste.
OMG.. that blueberry muffin looks divine. Your photos make me want to take a bite! I’ve always been a fan of blueberry muffins.
Judee recently posted…In My Kitchen – February
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I like everything about these muffs, Jeff. Blueberries, coconut, thick layer of lemon sugar. Pass me one please??
As far as the oven, I feel your pain. The ovens (yes, double ovens!) in the new house here in Asheville are, well, crap. One runs about 40 degrees hot and the other runs 20 degrees cold. It’s on the list to replace them at some point b/c it drives me batty whenever I bake something…and you know I’m always baking something!
David @ Spiced recently posted…Red Velvet Ombre Cake
I feel your pain, David!
No sé cómo se me había pasado esta receta, con lo riquísimos que tienen que estar estos muffins. La combinación arándano+coco+limón suena deliciosa.
Isabel
DE DULZANGAS, COMIDITAS Y OTRAS ZARANDAJAS recently posted…Morcillo de ternera al enebro con puré de manzana
They are delicious. Thanks!
I love spiced rum, what a great idea!
Tellement bon les myrtilles
Merci
delphine recently posted…Yaourts au sirop d’érable
Aren’t they? Thanks!
Blueberry muffins don’t last long around my house, so no need to worry about them tasting like they belong with the snack cakes LOL. These would be so good for Easter brunch.
Theresa recently posted…Chili Corn Bread
What a great idea, Theresa!
I am fond of it, your’s look such professional
Oh, thank you so much. One of these days, I will make a professional-quality blueberry muffin. I don’t think this one is it, although I did enjoy them a lot.