blackberry, lemon and thyme muffins

A day of baking old favourites. Chocolate cheesecake brownies, chocolate guinness cake, chocolate raspberry croissant pudding and one new simple recipe from the Australian Woman's Weekly - armenian nutmeg cake. Feel a bit ambivalent about this latest one, although freshly grated nutmeg is one of the best smells you could possibly inhale positively LIFE affirming. This afternoon I decided to see if I could actually make muffins, following my muffin disaster last week when a whole batch were declared inedible due to doughiness. The secret, I've been told is in the speed of mixing together the ingredients... a little like scones. We shall see. It proved to be an interesting recipe conversion from US measurements of sticks of butter and cake flour (for which I substituted 3/4 cup flour and 2 tablespoons of cornflour). I fell in love with this recipe purely on the name, earthy and rustic from Bon Apetit. Luckily blackberries are everywhere at the moment!

BLACKBERRY,LEMON & THYME MUFFINS
Crumble
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme chopped finely
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
85g butter
1 large egg yolk
Whisk dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter.  Using fingertips, rub in butter until pea-size lumps form.  Add egg yolk; stir to evenly distribute and form moist clumps. Crumble should resemble a mixture of pebbles and sand. Chill for at least an hour.  Can be made up to 3 day's in advance.
Muffins
1 cup flour
1 cup cake flour ( http://joythebaker.com/2009/09/how-to-make-cake-flour/ )
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
113g unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
2 lemons - zest only
1 1/2 cups fresh blackberries
1 tblsp chopped fresh thyme
Preheat oven to 160C.  Line 12 muffin molds. 
Whisk all dry ingredients together. 
In a separate bowl beat the butter until pale and creamy, approximately 2 minutes.  Add sugar and continue to beat for a few minutes.  
Whisk eggs and vanilla essence separately then add gradually to the butter and sugar mixture.  Continue beating until light and fluffy.  
Combine lemon zest and buttermilk in a small bowl, then gradually beat into butter mixture.
Fold in dry ingredients being careful not to overmix.
Toss blackberries and thyme with 2 tablespoons of flour and fold into batter quickly gently crushing berries slightly to release some juices. 
Divide mixture between the molds.  Top each with 2 tblsps crumble mixture.
Bake until tops are golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre, approx 50 minutes.
Cool in the tray then leave to rest on a wire rack.