peachy blueberry muffins

peachy blueberry muffins crusted with butter, sugar and chopped walnuts

This recipe comes from my mom's best friend Julie, who is also my brother's godmother. She's the closest type of family friend. For example, we spend every Christmas Eve at her house, enjoying all sorts of Italian fish dishes prepared by Julie, her husband Jimmy and their son James. Fried calamari, penne alla vodka and stuff clams... Great cooks all of them, and my mom has certainly adopted more than one of the Frangione family recipes into our kitchen over the years.

This peachy blueberry muffin recipe is one of them, and it is without doubt a treasure. Julie told me she adapted it from Coldwell Banker of all places, adding the blueberries among other changes. Coldwell is a realtor and I guess they used to put out monthly fliers with house selling tips, one of which was to make these muffins for a summer open house. I have to say, if anything could sell me a house, it might be these muffins. They're not too sweet, and the fruit pieces burst open in your mouth like candy. The butter sugar and walnuts combine to form an amazing crunchy sweet topping, and the sour cream moistened batter is soft and delicious. Best eaten fresh out of the oven, these can get a bit soggy the second day, so it's best to revive them in the toaster before you eat them again. They work really well as muffins, but you could also bake them in a pan and cut into bars. However you make these, please don't skip them. There isn't anything better you could make with sweet summer peaches and blueberries. I'd be hard pressed to name a baked good I love more.


the fruit studded interior of a peachy blueberry muffin

My mom hadn't made these in years, probably not since before high school, but they still loomed large in my memory. Earlier in the week Nathan's grandma gave us each a pint of blueberries, (they were on sale, three for $5), and then I got peaches from my food co-op. My mind immediately jumped to these muffins. I called up my brother and asked him to scan the recipe for me. Matt actually couldn't figure out how to scan on the printer, so he took four photos of the recipe which I had to paste together. It was pretty ghetto, but had absolutely no bearing on the final recipe. When I baked these up last Saturday morning, New York was still in the middle of the heat wave from hell, but cranking up the oven and overheating my apartment before noon was still well worth it. They were just as perfectly delicious as I remembered.

Peachy Blueberry Muffins
Muffin:
1¾ cup flour
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
¼ cup melted butter
1 tsp vanilla
1½ cup chopped peaches (this was three fairly small peaches for me cut into sixths that I then chopped into thirds)
1 cup blueberries
Topping:
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup sugar
¼ cup butter, soft

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder in bowl. Add mixture of eggs, sour cream, butter, vanilla, peach chunks and blueberries: mix till just moistened. Full 12 greased muffin cups three quarters full.Mix topping and sprinkle over muffins.

Bake at 400° for 25 minutes.

It actually took me at least 40 minutes to bake these, and there might have been a bit too much butter in the topping, but those are only the minorest of complaints when faced with a muffin this awesomely delicious.


the blueberries turned my tongue blue

I'll be happy when I can stick out my tongue like that again. This closed mouth thing is MISERABLE.