Good morning all!

Welcome back to Sunday Gravy.

It’s draft week! A small sign of life in the seemingly never ending NFL offseason.

We’ve also got your NHL and NBA playoffs rocking. It’s a pretty full sports schedule we’ve got going these days.

At the start of the season I had mentioned that we would be departing from the standard norms of the traditional Sunday Gravy posts of the past 9 seasons and our feature today is a good example of that.

You long time readers know that we don’t always do much in the way of dessert baking around here and for actually making the Sunday Gravy featured item cut that is pretty damn true.

Although we’ve dabbled a bit in the past.

However!

Just because there’s a paucity of baked dessert recipes on Sunday Gravy, it behooves you to remember that I’ve got mad motherfucking baking skills in all sorts of applications.

I mentioned before about some of the reasons why I don’t do more baked desserts here with the primary fact being I am really good at baked goods and were I to bake on a regular basis I would also consume way too much on a regular basis.

I don’t mind a taste or two of home baked goodness but my old ass is trying to remain in shape as I approach my retirement years and avoidance of baked sugary tastiness is a rather simple way to keep on track.

Our dish today is one such example.

For our annual St. Patrick’s Day gathering we had the typical gathering of the LA clan, including eldest daughter, son–in-law and two eldest granddaughters. The perfect opportunity to show off my baking skills while having many additional mouths on hand to help me consume such delicacies. 

Win Win!

Blueberry muffins are, as every one of you know, just goddamn delightful. Even a mediocre or shitty blueberry muffin is perfectly easy and even enjoyable to consume.

If, on the other hand, you can produce a top notch or dare I say, even legendary muffin. Your baking skills will be talked about in hushed or even awe-inspired tones for years to come. Because a legendary blueberry muffin is not just noteworthy, its legend has the potential to physically survive you for generations after you’ve moved towards the next plane of existence.

Shit, I remember some of my grandmothers baking to this day and she didn’t even make it to this millenia.

You too, dear friends, can have your baking exploits and family memory thereof, live forever.

And this motherfucker right here is a perfect way to do it.

Let’s show you how.

Blueberry Muffins!

recipe courtesy of culinaryhill.com

“2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter melted

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups (1 pint) fresh blueberries washed, drained, and picked-over, or frozen”

For the streusel topping

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter cold”

Proper muffin paper applied. I haven’t bought muffin paper, or liners, or cupcake caddies or what-ever-the-fuck these damn things are called in a long goddamn time and like many other things I’ve lost focus on, was surprised to find out there had been an evolution in these things.

Because of fucking course there has been.

Remember the days of the multi-colored cupcake liners with the balloon designs and festive holiday specific silhouettes and shit?

Gone. 

These fuckers were acid-free and recycled paper and “no lint” and a bunch of other random things and you know what?

That’s good!

All you’re going to do is peel this bastard off and trash it just prior to shoving the lovely muffin right in your goddamn gob. Who wants artificial coloring and unneeded bullshit on their muffin cups?

I am all for this innovation.

We begin our preparation today by sifting together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Yes, sifting is important for the proper fluffiness in our muffin.

You do want fluffiness don’t you?

Whisk the eggs then add them to a medium bowl containing our melted butter, milk and vanilla

That would be our wet ingredients and a lot of random shit on the counter.

Yep. FRESH blueberries.

This should show you how serious I’m taking today’s endeavor. Because I always, ALWAYS have frozen blueberries on hand. We’re doing this shit proper today.

Get your wet and dry ready.

See that big measuring cup on the upper right with the purple substance in it? That’s my morning breakfast smoothie in which I used frozen blueberries!

You kidding me? We got a theme goin’!

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until combined. It will be slightly lumpy.

Get the blueberries a proper pick-through and a rinse prior to adding to the batter, getting rid of the lifeless, or downright ugly berries. Also discard the stems.

Now give them a quick rinse.

Using your best rubber spatula “fold” them berries right in there. You want even berry distribution.

Oh shit yeah.

Next were going to make our streusel topping. As straight up fucking awesome as your standard blueberry muffin is, it has no chance – ZERO! -against a fresh blueberry muffin with the steusel topping.

We’re shooting for fucking legendary remember?

Back to the recipe.

“To prepare the streusel topping, in a medium bowl combine ¼ cup flour, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, cinnamon, and ⅛ teaspoon salt.”

Cut the chilled butter into chunks which will make it easier to “cut” into the dry ingredients.

Use a pastry cutter for this step and cut away until the butter chunks are all about equal size.

Get your batter into the muffin tins.

Take your time with this step! Shit’s important! I added 1 tablespoon to each cup, then gradually added equal amounts to each individual cup until all of the batter had been used.

Consistency dammit!

If each cup has the same amount of batter they will cook and be done at the same time.

Much less chance of fuck-uppery if you get this step right.

Cover each filled cup with the streusel topping. Same deal here! Even distribution.

See!?!

Then into the preheated 400 oven for 18-22 minutes depending on your stove. For me? Twenty minutes exactly was perfect.

Let them cool completely on a cooling rack before removing the muffins from the pan.

A lower angle so you can see their height.

You can tell that I used fresh blueberries by the colorful purple bursting of the berries.

Get them on a plate.

They’re fucking gorgeous! Just LOOK!

Have one. Go ahead.

Absolutely bursting with berries and that streusel topping? God DAMN!

Best blueberry muffin ever!

This is a recipe that will get stuck in your brain. They are really simple to do and just as simple to do spectacularly. Middle granddaughter, the Wahini – ate three of them. Hell naw I didn’t tell mom. This is how grandparents earn their awesomeness, by not oversharing.

I had one of these the next day and fucking hell it was just as good. Keep covered, or wrapped in plastic or just store them in a big ass plastic baggie.

You absolutely need these muffins, because when it comes right down to it. Don’t we all deserve a nice, warm fluffy muffin?

Bet your ass!

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone.

Thanks for stopping by.

And best of luck to most of your teams in the draft this week.

See you next Sunday.

PEACE.