Blueberry-Zucchini Whole Grain Muffins

My gosh, it’s good to be sitting here, writing this post. Like the first day of spring after a long, but really beautiful, winter. I don’t know quite where to begin, Wedding Season having driven me to lots of repeat favorite summer recipes and old standbys, just to make it through the busyness in one piece. There was lots of Jimmy Johns, too – I won’t lie to you. And not nearly as many Saturday mornings at the farmers’ market or Friday afternoons at the beach as I would have liked. Instead, there were showers and sewing days and crafting days and one long weekend of just making cake pops (my sister Carla and I made over 150 of them – they made fabulous wedding favors) in order to pull off one very d.i.y. wedding.

So here we are again, post-wedding madness. Things are a little different around here. Eli the boyfriend has become Eli the husband, and he doesn’t go home after dinner anymore. We’re crammed, for the moment, into my little two-bedroom apartment on the north side of Grand Rapids, trying desperately to soak up what’s left of summer in West Michigan, and preparing for a honeymoon trip to Kenya next month.

And in the meantime, I’m trying to settle into a renewed routine of exploring in the kitchen (I have a stack of new cookbooks and a roomful of fantastic cooking tools, thanks to all those bridal showers) and learning a new job at Zondervan and regular 3-mile runs and packing my apartment and three times as much dirty laundry (at least) to keep up with, and figuring out what being married looks like for us – oh, and on top of that, I have to try to remember that my last name has changed.

But it’s all good. All joyous. Even the cramped apartment. All I have to do is open my eyes in the morning and see the sleeping face next to me, and my heart just sings. It sang, too, this past Saturday morning when I came home from the farmers’ market at nine o’clock in the morning with a ten-pound box of blueberries, and made French toast with blueberries for Eli.

Thank goodness I didn’t miss August altogether – not quite. August in Michigan is blueberry season. It’s also the season of sweet corn, honey rock melons, freestone peaches, and endless zucchini. I came home with all of the above Saturday (I had to make two trips to the car to unload as I was shopping), and promptly froze several quarts of blueberries to be baked into good things throughout the winter.

I was delighted to find that the farmers’ market has a new vendor, too – a grain farmer selling local, organic, whole grain flour, something I’ve been longing for. I bought several pounds of whole grain pastry flour, and a couple of pounds of spelt flour, remembering several spelt recipes I’d been wanting to try from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain. Note: if you can’t find spelt flour for the recipe below, just use a whole grain blend flour, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

Kim’s recipe for carrot muffins sounded most appealing, but not having picked up any carrots that day, I wondered if I could get away with trading them for shredded zucchini. And considering my extensive supply of fresh blueberries, I thought those just might be a good addition as well. I decided they were worth a try. The result was really beyond my expectations.

The muffins baked up moist and perfect, their streusel topping adding an even sweeter touch. In my popover pan, with its slightly deeper cups, they took longer than the recipe suggested to bake fully, and longer to cool, but the result was a breakfast-sized muffin that could stand alone. They disappeared quickly, and served as an impromptu dessert when we had unexpected company for dinner one night.

One caution: if you don’t use paper liners, allow the muffins to cool completely before removing them from the pan, or you’ll risk them falling apart.

Makes 10 jumbo or popover-size muffins, or about 16 regular-size muffins.

Blueberry-Zucchini Whole Grain Muffins

For the muffins:
1 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup oat bran (can be found with the hot cereal at your local market)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice or sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg (the recipe called for allspice, but I was out of it, so I used nutmeg, which has a similar tone to it)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) unsalted sweet cream butter, melted and cooled
1 cup buttermilk, plain yogurt, or whole milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 2 small, 1 medium, or 1/3 of a very large squash)
1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries

For the streusel topping:
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons spelt flour
2 tablespoons oat bran
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon evaporated cane juice or sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
3 tablespoons cold unsalted sweet cream butter, cut into cubes


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or popover pan with spray oil, or line the cups with paper liners (in a pinch, squares of parchment placed in the cups and pleated to create a tulip shape work great).

In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients for the streusel topping. When fully combined, use a pastry blender or two sharp knives to cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the spelt flour, all-purpose flour, oat bran, sugars, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the melted butter, dairy of your choice, egg, and vanilla until fully combined.

Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet mixture. Using a wooden spoon, mix together with sure strokes until everything is fully incorporated. Stir in the zucchini, then gently fold in the blueberries.

Fill the prepared muffin pan cavities right up to the top (they will rise just enough, trust me!) and use a spoon to pile on a bit of the streusel topping.

Bake 40-45 minutes, until a nice shade of golden brown, and a toothpick inserted deep into the muffin comes out clean.

Remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

Here’s to muffin making!

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