Do you know the Muffin Woman? Blue Blueberry Muffins

Click here for Blue Blueberry Muffin recipe!

My house smells like Hannah Swensen’s bakery! If you don’t know who Hannah is, let me introduce her!

Hannah Swensen is a fictional character created by Joanne Fluke. Hannah owns a bakery and cafe called the Cookie Jar and is always finding herself involved with solving murders in her fictional town. Joanne Fluke has written 29 Hannah Swensen mystery books and each book has corresponding recipes included. I love this series of books and the Hallmark Channel even has adapted some to movies!

Today I found myself with blueberries that were not going to make it through the weekend. Most of the time I use them in discard blueberry pancakes (sourdough discard has a way of multiplying very quickly!). But today I was really feeling a blueberry muffin vibe and knew Hannah had one in one of the books. It is found in….you’ll never believe it… The Blueberry Muffin Murder, crazy, right?

If you love to read lighthearted mysteries that center around some really tasty recipes and a bit of romance, I encourage you to look up Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen series, they are a fun read!

Back to the muffins – these turned out light, fluffy and full of blueberry flavor! I an already starting to think of variations I can use with the basic batter. Strawberry, cherry, apricot, apple are the first to come to mind. I did make a few changes though. I have mentioned before about my husband being diabetic (Type 2) and with my love of baking and his love of eating, some changes could not be ignored.

The first thing I changed was the sugar, I have been experimenting with sugar substitutes and this time I chose to use Swerve granulated. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between it and real sugar. There is no aftertaste and it is low-glycemic, definitely a hit replacement!

Secondly, I did not use pie filling. A few weeks back there was this great sale on blueberries and I can’t resist a sale (which is why I made blackberry muffins two weeks ago – 75 cents a half pint!!), so we had discard blueberry pancakes and I thought about freezing the rest. But then I had a brilliant idea, loose jam. I love loose jam, it’s not like the thick pectin congealed, spreadable kind, it’s a loose, delicious, drippy concoction similar to a sauce or syrup but with pieces of fruit in it. I don’t even know if it is a real thing, but I love making my fruit jams this consistency. Maybe it is more of a preserve? Either way, it is delicious! So I used a half cup of this jam in place of the pie filling.

Third, one cannot have enough blueberrries. So I topped the muffins with several extra blueberries after topping with the struesel. It drives home that these are blueberry muffins and make for a very pretty muffin presentation!

On a side note, you may have noticed I used two different pans for baking. I love my Williams Sonoma cupcake pan, when I got it my husband said “Is one enough? Don’t you need two?” To which I replied, “No, one should be fine I don’t use this type of pan much anyway.” I should have gotten two. I always have batter leftover, so I grabbed the Pampered Chef Brownie Pan that is supposed to be used for making all edge pieces (we use it for egg bite style omelets or baked oatmeal squares) and threw some cupcake liners into it. I figured they would come out of the pan misshapen but the batter actually forms to the pan quite well and you have a slightly larger square muffin!

I also have figured out a cool little trick to get the muffins out of either pan – a CHOPSTICK! I used to dig at it with a fork or dump them out on a rack, the muffins always ended up looking shabby after being knocked around and poked at. One day I was looking for a better option than a fork and saw the chopsticks in my drawer. A chopstick works perfectly to lift the side up enough you can pull the muffin out with your hand. Give it a try next time you bake something in a muffin tin!

I wonder what I will find on sale this weekend at the market?