Red Huckleberry Muffins
Red Huckleberries?
If you’ve heard of huckleberries at all, you’re probably only familiar with the blue ones. That’s because red huckleberries are almost impossible to cultivate on a large scale!
These fabulous little berries are a Northwest native, and are commonly found growing on old tree stumps. In fact, they find it hard to grow anywhere other than a tree stump - so unless you have a big field of dead trees, it’s pretty tough to start a red huckleberry farm. Even if you do get your bushes started, it takes hours and hours to pick the tiny, individual fruits.
On top of all that, it takes as much as 15 years for a red huckleberry bush to really start producing! So your best bet is to either find a wild patch and start picking…or find a farmer who has some bushes on their property, and is willing to put the time into picking the fiddly fruits.
Luckily, we have the bushes, and I’m so obsessed with these little red gems that I’ll happily put the hours into picking some for the farmer’s market. In fact, the three little berry patches were one of the reasons why I fell in love with this farm!
After eating a bunch of them raw, I decided to whip up a batch of red huckleberry muffins this year. The husband liked them so much, he ate four of them straight out of the tin!
Hearth and Haven Huckleberry Muffins
Ingredients
• 2 cups plus ¼ cup flour
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¾ cup milk
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
• 1 duck egg (OR 1 jumbo chicken egg)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups red huckleberries
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line two muffin tins with paper cups.
Toss the huckleberries with ¼ cup of flour to coat.
In a large bowl, stir together 2 cups flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together the milk, butter, egg, and vanilla until well blended.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the milk mixture and stir until barely blended. Stir in the huckleberries.
Spoon batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups, and bake for 15-20 mins. Cool on a wire rack, and enjoy!
