Blueberry streusel muffins

Summer is abundance of fresh berries. Out of all berries, my top two all time favorites are strawberry and blueberry. I love blueberry muffins! It's my favor pick from the morning office meetings and my favorite pastry from starbucks (i love the streusel topping sprinkled over the top of the muffins). I have long wanted to make this little favorite of mine. Last weekend we went to Napa for wine tasting and it's the perfect time to have some home-made muffins for breakfast before we start the long day drinking..and we even brough some to Napa to eat along with wine!

Ingredients: for 15 muffins
· 1 cup milk ( I used 1% milk as this is what I typically have at home)
· 2 large eggs, 1 white
· 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
· 3 cups all purpose flour
· ½ cup of granulated white sugar
· 1 tablespoon baking powder
· ½ teaspoon salt
· 2/3 cup (2/3 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
· 1.5-2 cups fresh blueberry
· ½ tablespoon grated lemon zest
· 1/3 cup (1/3 stick) unsalted butter
· 2 tablespoon nonfat yogurt

Procedures:
For muffins:
1. Preheat over to 350 degrees . Place rack in the middle of oven
2. Line 15 muffin cups with paper liners
3. In a bowl, mix together: milk, eggs, yogurt and vanilla extract
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into flour mixture with a pastry blender or a knive. This mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Remove 2/3 cup of the mixture and set aside in a separate bowl to make the streusel topping.
5. To the remaining muffin batter in 4), gently fold in the blueberries and lemon zest. Add in the milk and egg mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combine (do not over mix this mixture or the muffin will be tough when baked).
6. Fill each muffin cup with the batter using an ice cream scoop.

For streusel topping:
1. Melt the remaining 1/3 stick butter and drizzle over the reserve 2/3 cup of streusel topping. Mix together with a folk until it’s crumbly and it looks like coarse meal.
2. Springkle a couple of teaspoons of the streusel over the top of each muffin.

Place the muffins in the over and bake until very lightly brown and firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean about 20-25 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool.

the end product:

recipe adapted from http://www.joyofbaking.com/

Note: the basic recipes came from the above source. As for all my cooking, the recipes I included here are modified based on my family’s taste bug (e.g. I normally cut the sugar portion by 1/3-1/2) and my preference.