Regarding recipes that call for sour cream and yogurt:
Yogurt = a bit tougher, lighter texture, and a bit of tanginess. It also helps activate the baking powder, but heat is usually enough to do that properly. If a recipe calls for baking soda, don’t skip yogurt or sour cream if it’s listed. You can swap yogurt for sour cream interchangeably, but the final product will have different properties.
I’ll be making a short loaf of each of the 2 versions so they cook fairly quickly and we can do a side-by-each comparison.
I’m also swapping sour cream for the yogurt since I can’t get to the store today.
Blueberry muffins (no yogurt)
Ingredients
Muffin base
dry ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup AP flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
wet incredients
- 1/3 cup neutral tasting vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup milk (2% or higher fat content)
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
Crumble topping
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup AP flour
- 1/4 cup cubed, cool (not hard) butter
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F
- Grease 8 large muffin cups, or line a muffin tray with paper cups.
Muffin Base
- Whisk dry ingredients together.
- In a large measuring cup, add oil, egg, and enough milk to get to 1 cup line.
- Stir wet ingredients until combined.
- Pour wet into dry and mix just until combined.
- Fold in blueberries and set aside.
Crumble Topping
- Mix ingredients with a fork, pastry cutter, or hand mixer on slow. Stop when the mixture is crumbly.
Assembly
- Spoon batter into cups, just before filled.
- Sprinkle crumble topping to cover.
- Bake until toothpick test comes out clean, anywhere from 15-25 minutes. Startt testing at 15 minutes.
Notes
Muffin to loaf conversion.
- Grease a loaf pan, or make parchment paper basket.
- Fill to at most 3/4
- Reduce temp 25F and double the baking time, and confirm done with a toothpick test. I normally start testing around 40-45 minutes.
Blueberry Muffins (yogurt)
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 12.5 oz cake flour see #1 below
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt (aka heavy pinch)
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar yes I know this is dry, deal with it
- 1/2 cup neutral-tasting vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 1 cup yogurt see #2 below
- 1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 380 F
- In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
- In another large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, egg and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients reserving 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients and toss with the blueberries. Stir mixture for a count of 10. Add 1 cup blueberries to mixture and stir 3 more times. Reserve the 1/2 cup of blueberries.
- Using a #20 ice cream scoop (2 oz or 1/4 cup - 2 tsp), add the mixture to greased muffin pans.
- Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of berries on top of muffins and press down lightly. Place into the oven and increase the temperature to 400 degrees.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Remove from oven and turn out, upside down on tea towel to cool completely. Serve immediately or store in airtight container for 2 to 3 days.
Notes
- Cake flour has a lot less protein, and forms a lot less gluten.
If you don't have cake flour, you can use all-purpose, just make sure to stir it the minimum amount possible. - Unless a recipe calls for Greek yogurt, stick to the generic unflavoured kind the first time you try a recipe.