Streusel Topping Will Transform Your Average Blueberry Muffins
What's America's favorite muffin? If you named blueberry, there's a good chance you're right. While it's difficult to turn opinions into hard data, two different online polling sites, StrawPoll and Ranker, have these muffins at the top of their lists, with chocolate chip coming in a distant second. Beloved though blueberry muffins may be, sometimes you get tired of the same old thing. Mashed recipe developer Molly Allen addresses the issue of blueberry boredom by switching up standard muffins for ones with a streusel topping.
For the most part, Allen's blueberry muffin recipe is pretty typical: You've got your flour, sugar, milk, eggs, etc., which get stirred into a batter with blueberries. Before the muffins go in the oven, though, they get a visit from the streusel fairy who sprinkles them with a blend of flour, brown sugar, and melted butter. The streusel, Allen assures us, "add[s] the ideal texture on top and ... really up[s] the ante."
Streusel topping works for other types of muffins, too
As the streusel topping Molly Allen uses on her muffins is fairly neutral in flavor, it can work on just about any kind of muffin. Using this recipe as a template, you can swap out the blueberries for strawberries or raspberries or mix and match to your liking. You can swap the berries out for chopped peaches, pears, or apples, as well, although in the latter instance, you might want to stir a little cinnamon into the streusel topping.
Other muffin recipes can be streuselized, with the toppings customized to suit the flavors. For example, with this orange muffin recipe, you could omit the glaze and doctor up the streusel with some orange zest. For a banana or chocolate chip muffin recipe, streusel with chopped nuts would make an extra-tasty topping. Even savory muffins can benefit from a streusel topping. However, unless you're really into sweet and savory flavor mashups you'll probably want to dial way back on the sugar (start with just 1 or 2 teaspoons per cup of flour) and maybe add some spices or parmesan cheese to boost the flavor of the butter-flour mixture.