Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused blueberry muffins with streusel crumb topping making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks. Danielle is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon.
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She has authored five cookbooks and contributed recipe testing to six additional cookbooks. Danielle has worked as a staff editor and writer for the Oakland Tribune and Eater Portland, among others. Danielle has been writing for The Spruce Eats since December 2018. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. To always have the streusel on hand, you can mix up all of the ingredients except the butter and store it in the pantry. Then when the time comes, simply pour into a food processor, add the butter, and mix until crumbs form.
Butter is so important to the success of your streusel topping, so don’t be tempted to skimp on it or use room-temperature butter. If you don’t use enough, the topping won’t form those coveted crumbs—it will be too floury. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Sprinkle the topping over muffins, pies, or coffee cake immediately before baking. Bake muffins, pies, or coffee cake. Combine the ingredients in the same ratio as the recipe and mix it properly with the butter and brown sugar. For a gluten-free variation, feel free to substitute rice flour or any other of your favorite gluten-free flour alternatives.
For a vegan alternative, substitute non-dairy margarine for the butter. To create a larger crumb topping, squeeze bits of the butter-flour-sugar mixture together as you apply it to the top of your muffins, cakes, or pies to achieve desired texture. Make sure you measure the brown sugar “packed,” which means it fits tightly in the measuring cup. After you spoon it in, push it down and keep adding more until the sugar reaches the top of the cup. A sour cream apple pie with this topping offers a twist on the traditional take. When blueberries are in season, a blueberry snack cake covered in a streusel topping is delicious. Try a tropical twist like a peach mango pie topped with the cinnamon and brown sugar mixture.