March 9, 2025
Winter in New England this year has been brutal. We’ve had multiple weeks of frigid temperatures and snowy days. While I mostly enjoy the snowfall, the most difficult part has been the effect of the cold temp on my working hands. No matter how much lotion I lather on, it never seems to be enough to keep my hands from cracking. That aside, Z has been absolutely loving the snow days. She would often eagerly await the snowfall just to play outside. On snow days, I can see her eyes light up when she sees piles upon piles of snow outside the window. The moment she steps foot outdoors, she doesn’t want to come back inside. I’ve deeply appreciated all of the precious moments I’ve been able to experience watching her find joy in winter weather. In between shuttling her to and from school and going to work myself, I’ve been working on another recipe to share on my site that features two ingredients unique to New England. The first ingredient is wild blueberries. I’m using the frozen kind from Wyman’s since I can more easily get them at the local Market Basket and Stop & Shop. The second ingredient is maple syrup that I’ve had the pleasure of getting in person at Ben’s Sugar Shack up in New Hampshire. These ingredients are featured in my recipe for maple blueberry muffins. While experimenting with the ratio of ingredients for my maple blueberry muffins, I found that just adding maple syrup is not enough to give the muffins the distinctive maple flavor and aroma. I definitely needed to add a couple teaspoons of maple extract to help the maple flavor shine in these muffins. Once I made that breakthrough, I was able to produce muffins with a lovely maple flavor. Most muffin recipes ask for cupcake liners to be filled halfway or three-quarter way full, but for these muffins, I like to fill the cupcake liners to the very top. This way, once baked, the muffins spill over and end up with the look of true muffins. Another trick I learned during my experiments is the importance of using a mixture of mashed and whole blueberries. Mashing the blueberries helps to give the muffins a stronger and more prevalent blueberry flavor. For this recipe, I used a combination of mashed fresh blueberries and frozen wild blueberries. Just a note on Wyman’s wild blueberries: I started incorporating these blueberries into my baked goods when I discovered them at a local Stop & Shop shortly after moving to Massachusetts. These frozen wild blueberries tend to be smaller and have a much more intense blueberry flavor than standard blueberries. I’ve used them extensively when making my wild blueberry whoopie pies and like to incorporate them into baked goods that ask for blueberries. Not only do these muffins have an intense blueberry flavor that honor the flavor profile of blueberry muffins, but the maple flavor also shines through with the addition of both the syrup and extract. I’ll admit that even before moving to New England, I loved using maple syrup in pretty much everything I make. Maple syrup has a clean sweet flavor and works beautifully as a sweetener for sauces, dips, and milk tea. Since moving to Massachusetts, I find myself adding maple syrup to pretty much everything. Once a year, during Maple Weekends here in New England, I travel up north to stock up on maple syrup. When March rolled around this year, we drove up north again to stock up on maple products from Ben’s Sugar Shack. Ben’s Sugar Shack is a well-known local producer of maple syrup located in New Hampshire and has become our go-to shop for maple syrup. Earlier this month, we got a refresher on how maple syrup is produced, enjoyed some samples of maple products, and stocked up on a few bottles of maple syrup all from Ben’s. Aside from just maple syrup, Ben’s also carries maple-flavored snacks. Kev usually heads for the snack section to get his fix of maple leaf crème cookies while my snack of choice is Cabot’s maple cheddar popcorn, a nod to New England that reminds me so much of Garrett’s popcorn in Chicago (I even recreated them here). Though, that’s a story for another time. Here are some photos of our latest visit to Ben’s Sugar Shack this month:
Once we loaded up on maple syrup (and an assorted array of maple-flavored treats) for the year, I got right back to work to make a batch of my maple blueberry muffins, the perfect little treat for breakfast, brunch, and snack on weekdays. As you can see in the photos above, Z is absolutely fascinated by the production of maple syrup. It also doesn’t hurt that the maple syrup treats are so addictive. When I started making maple blueberry muffins, she kept coming back for more and more. She often asks for them in the morning every few days. Luckily for us, during recipe development and testing, we all benefit from having large batches of muffins baked up and ready to go on those mornings where no one can be bothered to make breakfast. These maple blueberry muffins do the trick of filling our grumbling bellies and holding us over until lunch time.
For the maple blueberry muffins:
(makes 12 standard size muffins)
· 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
· 1 tablespoon baking powder
· ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
· ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
· 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
· 1 cup granulated sugar
· 2 tablespoons maple syrup
· 2 large eggs, room temperature
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 2 teaspoons maple extract
· 1 cup fresh blueberries, mashed
· ½ cup whole milk
· 1¼ cups Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries, reserve the ¼ cup for topping muffins right before baking
· turbinado sugar, for topping muffins right before baking
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners. Set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, baking powder, sea salt, and ground cinnamon. Set aside.
3) In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the maple syrup and mix until combined. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Fold in the vanilla extract and maple extract. Gently fold in the mashed blueberries. Pour in half of the whole milk and half of the dry ingredients from step 2. Mix until just combined. Add in the remaining milk and dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Gently fold in one cup of the frozen wild blueberries. (Note that the frozen wild blueberries will tint your batter a beautiful bluish-purple color.)
4) Evenly distribute the batter throughout the twelve muffin cups. Sprinkle the reserved ¼ cup of frozen wild blueberries evenly across the top of the filled muffin cups. Top each muffin cup with about a teaspoon of turbinado sugar. Transfer the muffin tin to the oven and bake for 25-27 minutes, until the tops of the muffins are golden brown and a knife inserted into the center of the centermost muffin comes out clean. Let muffins cool for 10 minutes before enjoying.
Takeaways: I discovered after many trials of making blueberry muffins over the years that the key to getting an intense blueberry flavor is by mashing some of the blueberries and folding the mashed blueberries into the batter. This extra step helps the blueberries to release their juices and helps the muffins achieve an intense blueberry flavor. I definitely have noticed a difference in the taste of blueberry muffins with mashed vs. un-mashed blueberries. Try it for yourself and share your findings in the comments below.
