Císte agus Milseáin: Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins

I wish this picture was scratch and sniff.

It's a snowy Saturday morning. I woke up early. Partly because Dougal wanted to go out and eat breakfast and partly because I can't get comfortable in bed in the morning.

I haven't felt much like baking most of my pregnancy (26 weeks today; we're having a boy!). I haven't had any crazy cravings, although I did go through a bagel with veggie cream cheese and a giant glass of Simply Orange orange juice phase. I also craved blueberry muffins from Dunkin' Donuts for a while. When we went to the grocery the other night, the strawberries and blueberries looked so beautiful that I placed a bunch in the cart. Last night I suddenly wanted homemade blueberry muffins.

I looked through my favorite book, The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet for Sur La Table (I know I've mentioned it before, because I love it so!) and found a recipe for Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins. I've tweaked it a little based on the ingredients I had in the kitchen this morning, so I'll put the recipe below.

I just ate one hot from the over. Oh. My. Even the molten blueberry juice couldn't stop me.
SO GOOD! Not just good, but melt in your mouth you may want to eat the whole platter of them yourself while hiding in the pantry so no one knows you made them good. I'm going to try to save some for my husband, but I may have to hide them and keep them to myself.

Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking for Sur La Table by Cindy Mushet

Makes 12 muffins.

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:
3/4 stick of unsalted butter
1 tsp. of lemon extract
2/3 cup of vanilla Greek yogurt
2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 pint of blueberries
18 teaspoons of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan well.

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter and lemon extract together in a small sauce pan. Remove from heat and at the yogurt. If the mixture feels tepid, add the 2 eggs and vanilla and whisk together.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the mixture of wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients. Stir together with a rubber spatula until there are no more pools of liquid and the batter looks fairly smooth (a little lumpy is ok). Set aside.

In the muffin pan, fill each cup with 1 1/2 teaspoons of brown sugar, sprinkled evenly over the bottom of each cup. Sprinkle a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice over the brown sugar in each cup. Place an even layer of blueberries over the brown sugar/lemon juice mixture. Cover with muffin batter.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. When you remove the muffins from the oven the tops should be lightly golden and firm to the touch. Carefully place a platter over the muffin pan and flip the pan over (muffin pan will be upside down, platter right side up). Be careful because the blueberry juice will be piping hot and steamy.

Voila!

Brown sugar and lemon juice.