Mini Blueberry Lemon Muffins

Tossing blueberries in flour helps prevent them from sinking. Don't overmix or muffins will be tough. Fill cups almost full - mini muffins should have nice domed tops. Fresh berries are worth it; frozen will work but may bleed more color.

Blueberry muffins occupy a specifically American place in baking history, developed in the context of New England and the Great Lakes states where the wild highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is native. Indigenous peoples of eastern North America — including the Lenape, Haudenosaunee, and Algonquian peoples — consumed wild blueberries fresh, dried, and in pemmican for thousands of years before European contact. Commercial blueberry cultivation began in New Jersey in the early 20th century when Elizabeth Coleman White partnered with botanist Frederick Coville to domesticate the highbush blueberry, releasing the first commercial variety in 1916. The muffin as an American quick bread format (leavened with baking powder or soda rather than yeast) developed in American baking from the mid-19th century onward following the commercial introduction of baking powder around 1856. American muffins — tender, slightly sweet quick breads baked in individual cups — are distinct from the British English muffin (a yeast-leavened griddle cake). Blueberry muffins appeared in American cookbooks through the late 19th and 20th centuries and became commercially produced as a packaged baked good from the 1960s onward. The lemon addition brightens the flavor by cutting through the sweetness of the berries with citric acid, a technique consistent with the broader principle in pastry of using acidity to sharpen and define fruit flavors.