I don’t care for deception. And when one of my favorite food blogs claims a definitive recipe for blueberry muffins, by God, it had better deliver.

I don’t know; I mean, these were tasty, but perfect? Edible, certainly, but not my idea of perfect.

I humbly acknowledge that one’s mileage may vary, but a muffin recipe that doesn’t tell you to toss your blueberries with a little flour (if you don’t, they’ll just sink to the bottom like the ones above did) strikes a chord of suspicion with me. Also, they were incredibly small for the size of my muffin cups.

Proceed at your own risk. After all, who knows, you may have better luck with this recipe than I. I’ll stick to cobblers and cake.

Perfect Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated/Smitten Kitchen

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter.