Saturday, December 14, 2013

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

After a fun evening of wine and fried things from the local Chinese delivery place, I ended up going to bed super early. As a result, I woke up at 6:00 fully refreshed and ready to start my day. My first thought upon awakening was "what is that amazing smell??" As it turned out, my houseguest had also arisen particularly early and had, while I still slumbered, browned a beef brisket and put it in the crockpot, where it is currently still making me crazy as it cooks.

I decided I wanted to get in on the productive early morning cooking from scratch train and realized I had all the right ingredients to make muffins. 

I used a recipe I found online but tweaked it so I'll put what I did here:

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
(Mix these ingredients together and set aside)

In a separate bowl:

Beat 1 large egg
Add 1 cup of milk (I used vanilla almond milk)
Add 1/4 cup oil or melted butter (I used melted coconut oil)
1 tsp lemon extract
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Whisk all together

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients. Fold all ingredients together carefully with a rubber spatula. Add about half a pint of fresh blueberries. Don't over mix or they will be tough!

Spoon batter into muffin tin or silicon or foil cups until about 3/4 full. Bake 25 minutes in a 400F oven. 

These muffins turned out beautifully...light and chewy on the inside, sweet and slightly crunchy on the top. The lemon is a little strong, so I might not use the lemon juice next time. And they're not too sweet, like store bought muffins can be.

I imagine they smell great. But I can't smell them over the scent of that brisket...oh my. We're going to have the best French dips for lunch!