My boyfriend doesn't like blueberries, particularly baked goods with blueberries in them. He had an unfortunate encounter with a blueberry pancake when he was a kid that has left him permanently scarred and so he now avoids them entirely. This means that if I bake items with blueberries, I am responsible for the entirety of the batch and so I've all but completely given up making blueberry muffins and cakes (I will make up batches of things with blueberries if I know I'll have a crowd who will help me eat them up).

However, I am happy to ogle blueberry treats whenever the opportunity occurs, and so I was delighted to discover this gorgeous image of blueberries muffins in a basket from Ariela of Baking and Books. She uses Alton Brown's recipe and says that they've saved her marriage.

Thanks Ariela for adding your image to the Slashfood Flickr pool.

Just about everyone I know loves baked goods with blueberries in them (my boyfriend is an exception - an unhappy encounter with some blueberry pancakes when he was a kid turned him off of them for life). These look like a fantastic example of the classic blueberry muffin (and right at the moment, I'm thinking that one of those guys would go perfectly with my coffee).

The picture comes to us from Matthew Hunt and the muffins are straight off page 68 of the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. Thanks Matthew for adding your image to the Slashfood Flickr pool!

Granola fans should introduce themselves to Bear Naked granola, if they aren't familiar with it already. The award winning, good-for-you cereal is on of the best selling and best tasting granolas in the country. Made with wholesome, all-natural ingredients, the company's goal is to make sure that their customers enjoy living a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy - starting with granola, of course. Their granolas are hand-crafted in small batches with real whole grains and other "bearly processed and utterly naked ingredients." They have been available in three flavors for a couple of years now: fruit and nut, apple cinnamon and banana nut. This month, the company is rolling out two new flavors, Peanut Butter and Jelly granola and Peak Protein Blueberry Walnut. The peanut butter flavor is designed to taste like one of the most popular sandwiches in the country and to appeal to kids as well as adults. The blueberry flavor is intended to remind eaters of freshly baked blueberry muffins.

Only the blueberry flavor is available at their online store right now, but both should be on store shelves alongside the original flavors within a couple of weeks.

Replacing the fat in baked goods is something that we have done a few times now, but for some people fat is not the issue that they want to tackle - it's sugar. Baking without sugar is much harder than baking without fat because fats contribute to the texture of the finished product, but not as much to the flavor. Granted, a buttery flavor can be nice, but I have had fat free cookies (made with applesauce) on numerous occasions that have tasted quite good, even if they are lacking in the texture department.

I am not generally one to put butter onto my muffins, especially if they start out as sweet as the Blueberry and Currant Muffins from Cookbook 411 sound. Usually, the richness of the muffin is sufficient, although L says that she makes her own butter, which does make the idea of buttering the muffin tempting. The muffins are stuffed with locally grown (from Seattle) fruits, the blueberries adding a juiciness and the majority of the rich color that is evident in the picture above, and the tiny red currants adding a slight tartness and a flavor that is similar to that of gooseberries. The best thing about the muffins, however, is that they stand as a reminder to the fact that a muffin does not have to be as large as your head, unlike some bakery muffins, to be either delicious or tempting because these are both.

My love of pancakes notwithstanding, muffins are one of my favorite breakfast foods. They're available at just about any coffee shop or bakery and are equally good on-the-go or when nibbled at while savoring a cup of coffee. If you're inclined to make them, it only takes minutes to asseble the batter and bake them up. If you're still worried about time, they can almost always be made a day in advance, too. This particular muffin uses dried blueberries instead of fresh or frozen, so there is no blue/pink discoloration of the muffin, but you still get that blueberry flavor. To get a high, domed rise on your muffins, check out our tips on how to make a bakery-style muffin.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

While I enjoy many, many varieties of homemade muffins, from light and moist to heavy and healthy, I have always found the bakery-like muffin difficult to recreate at home. Who doesn't love the fluffy interior, crispy ledge and high, domed top of muffins from a coffee shop or bakery? With the help of The Best Recipe, I compiled a few tips to picking a recipe and recreating these at home:

• Choose a muffin recipe that uses yogurt or buttermilk as a liquid, which will make a thicker batter and support the muffin in a high rise.
• A thick batter will allow you to heap the batter into muffin tins without it spreading all over the pan. This will ensure a high rise and create a small shelf around the base of the muffin.
• Even when using an acidic ingredient like yogurt or buttermilk, a muffin leavened mostly with baking powder will achieve a higher rise than one with baking soda alone.
• Using butter instead of oil and creaming it with the sugar will create a fluffier texture, not to mention that butter will give the muffins a more delicate (and delicious) flavor than oil.

Here is a fuller account of making bakery-style muffins, as well as a recipe for the Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Muffins pictured above. Or, you can check out Elise's Blueberry Muffin variation of the same recipe.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]