Blueberry Coconut Lime Brown Butter Muffins

Okay...It's a new year, I'm slowly (but surely) plodding my way through the mountain of backlog I had accumulated. I've at least edited photos for three other posts! See? Baby steps. It seems too soon to start talking about New Year reflections (given that my reflections post for the previous year was like what, a half year ago?), so I'll skip that bit first and jump straight to the goodies.

Blueberry Coconut Lime Brown Butter Muffins

Muffins used to be one of my favourite things to bake, cos they are one of the easiest things to bake. In 2014 however, I found a love for baking bread from scratch, so even though it requires so much more time (think proofing time), I didn't really bake a lot of muffins.

Once in a while however, I would crave a warm and buttery muffin. Preferably with a crumble on top. Cos, you know, why settle for anything lesser when you can have crumble? Anyway, I found Pierre Herme's blueberry muffins recipe. And of course, given that he's churned out such fantastic macarons, I didn't doubt the recipe would disappoint. I've added my own tweaks, by browning the butter, adding in shredded sweetened coconut and replacing some of the plain flour with wholemeal flour. 

These muffins were perfectly moist, with bursts of sweet blueberries and chewy coconut bits in each mouthful. The lime zest adds a special zing, and of course, the crumble adds a decadence (read - buttery = more fats) touch. If you're craving for a muffin, these sure hit the spot.

Blueberry Coconut Lime Brown Butter Muffins (adapted from here)
(makes 12 regular sized muffins)

Crumble
50g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
50g dark brown sugar
50g almond meal
50g plain flour

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and combine to form a coarse crumb.
Refrigerate while you make the muffin batter in the meantime.

Muffin batter
160g fine sugar
zest from 1 lime
a few pinches of salt
200g plain flour
100g whole wheat flour
10g baking powder
50g sweetened shredded coconut
100g eggs (about 2 medium eggs)
200g vanilla yogurt (or sour cream)
125g unsalted butter, browned and cooled
130g blueberries

Preheat oven to 170C.
Line a 12-cup muffin tray with cupcake liners.
Rub the lime zest into the sugar in a big bowl.
Add flours, salt, baking powder and shredded coconut and whisk to mix well.
In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, yogurt and brown butter.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and lightly mix together, be careful not to overmix.
Fold the blueberries into the batter. Divide the muffin batter into the cupcake liners evenly. Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of each muffin and bake for about 25 - 30 minutes or until a stick inserted into the muffin comes out clean.