Saskatoon Muffins with Blood Orange and Lime

It's been a while. Luckily, the lapse in updating is due to happy progress in my world - employment and thesis productivity. I have even successfully presented my first paper without dying of nerves. Go me. ^_~

So this post starts a small flurry of updates, as I have been cooking and taking photos, even if I am not posting the write-ups immediately. Except for tonight's post, as I made these muffins without taking any photos. Still very, very worth making though, which is why I am putting the recipe out there.

This muffin recipe has evolved out of visits from Alberta friends that have occurred over the last month or so. The first visit involved my friends Patti and Sylvia coming to visit me over the March long weekend. They brought chocolate, beer, and excellent company, all three of which I had been missing. I was house sitting for my Aunt and her family while they were away, which meant I also had kittens gambolling around, which is always fun. We upheld the Hobbit tradition of second breakfast that Sunday, and for Elevensies I decided to make muffins. Rifling through the freezer produced saskatoons, a type of berry that I adore, and I decided to substitute them for the blueberries in this Fine Cooking recipe, which is one of my default base muffin recipes because I find it so adaptable. Between the saskatoons and the decadent streusel topping, I was pretty sure these muffins couldn't get any better...

...but they did, when I made them again a few weeks later for my Mighty Kim who was up to share a few days with me. The second iteration used some of the blood orange infused olive oil that she had brought out for me, and some of the lime infused sugar that I've had kicking around. And I have to say, the second version really blew me away, even without the streusel topping. Give it a shot, if you feel up for something different. Feel free to sub out any fruit-infused olive oil for the blood orange if you have some kicking around (I'm debating trying it with rosemary oil and saskatoons... for some reason that seems like it could be fun), and swap up the berries for raspberries or blueberries if saskatoons aren't available or aren't your thing.

Saskatoon Muffins with Blood Orange and Lime

Makes 12

6-3/4 oz. (1-1/2 cups) all-purpose flour (whole wheat flour also works here)
2 oz. (1/2 cup) cake flour (or all purpose if you don't have cake flour)
1 tsp. baking soda 
1/2 tsp. baking powder 
1/2 tsp. salt 
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 
1/2 tsp. grated or ground nutmeg (or cardamom, if you'd rather)
4 oz. (1/2 cup) blood orange infused olive oil
1 cup granulated sugar (previously infused with lime zest; if you don't have lime zest, add ~2 tsp lime juice in with the wet ingredients)
2 large eggs 
1-1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh or frozen saskatoons; if frozen, do not defrost 

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin pan your favourite way - grease the cups, use paper liners, or use silicone muffin cups if you have them.

In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and stir until combined. In a separate large measuring cup or medium bowl, beat the eggs gently and then add the remaining wet ingredients to the eggs and stir to combine. Once the wet ingredients are well mixed, add them to the dry ingredients and stir until well incorporated, but don't continue to mix after well combined or the batter will collapse and you'll get dense muffins. Add the saskatoons or other berries to the batter and stir to distribute evenly.

Portion the batter into the prepared muffin cups, and bake for roughly 20 minutes, or until golden and a skewer poked into a muffin comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool ~10 minutes before serving. I actually found I preferred these at room temperature rather than warm, although they certainly aren't bad warm.

These can be stored in a tin at room temperature for a few days, or frozen and reheated as needed.