Sweetish Hill's Blueberry Muffins

These are the cult-favorite blueberry muffins from Sweetish Hill Bakery, the Austin, Texas institution that has been baking proper European-style breads and pastries since 1975. The recipe is a classic American bakery muffin: tall, fully domed, packed with fresh fruit, and tender enough to cut with a fork.

The flour blend is the key secret. A full 2½ cups of cake flour cut with 1½ cups of all-purpose gives these muffins their signature texture, more tender and finer-crumbed than typical all-AP muffins, but still with enough structure to hold up the heavy load of berries. Either flour alone gives you a different (and lesser) muffin.

Powdered milk is the bakery trick most home cooks miss. Half a cup of nonfat dry milk along with the water replaces fresh milk and adds extra protein, which boosts browning, supports the dome, and extends shelf life. Bakeries use it for consistency; you can use it for results.

Three cups of blueberries is generous and necessary. Less and you get plain muffins with a few berries; this many means every bite hits fruit. Fresh berries are the original choice, but frozen (unthawed) work in winter without bleeding into the batter.

Pro Tips

• Mix only until just combined, a few flour streaks are fine. Overmixing develops gluten and gives you tough, peaked muffins instead of tender domed ones.
• Toss the blueberries in a tablespoon of the measured flour before folding in. Floured berries stay suspended instead of sinking to the bottoms.
• Fill the cups almost to the top. Heavy fill plus the high oven temperature is what creates that tall bakery dome. Half-filled cups give you flat-topped muffins.
• Let the batter rest 10 minutes before scooping. The flour fully hydrates and the muffins rise even taller.

Variations

• Sprinkle a coarse sugar topping (turbinado or sanding sugar) on the batter before baking for a crackly bakery crust.
• Add the finely grated zest of a lemon to the wet ingredients for a lemon blueberry muffin.
• Swap blueberries for raspberries, blackberries, or a mix for a triple-berry version.