Blueberry Muffin Bread

More About This Recipe

• Few foods are as quintessential to baking as blueberry muffins. They are the archetypal foray into baking; if you've made blueberry muffins from scratch, it's as though you've arrived. Considering they've been around for so long, it seems everyone has developed her favorite version. Some love the ones straight from the box; others like to create their own batters mixed with cranberries or chocolate chips. Some keep it simple with blueberries alone. Now that berries are in season (along with a plethora of other tasty fruit: Apricots! Peaches! Plums! The grocery store and farmers market is a carnival of delicious summer produce), it's the perfect time to make those muffins you've always loved waking up to the smell of in the morning, or mixing the batter yourself with a nice big cup o' joe by your side. For me, I've been getting a little sick of them. Muffins, that is. Much as I love a good muffin, they are sometimes too sugary and too cakey for my taste at breakfast. I'm one of those people who will take an egg and wheat toast any day over a gooey muffin or frosted doughnut in the morning. Unless there's pie involved - but that's a whole other story. Yet blueberry muffins are still a staple of my summer, so I decided to create a compromise in the form of blueberry muffin bread. Sweet and dense enough to retain that beloved blueberry muffin taste and texture, but still light and airy enough to avoid being overly sugary and cakey, it's the best of both worlds. I'm sad to say that I used dried blueberries in my recipe rather than fresh ones. It was a matter of convenience for me. I'm sure fresh, frozen blueberries will work just as well, if not better, in this dough. Mixed with a hint of nutmeg, a warm slice of this bread spackled with butter is the tastiest new way to eat your blueberry muffin at breakfast.