During the summer my children eat enough berries that they might bankrupt us. Seriously, they eat at least a pint of blueberries or strawberries every.single.day and sometimes I wonder how I will keep us in organic fruit.
Besides growing it.
Which I have started to do and have yielded us exactly 3 blueberries. But next year! Next year will produce enough berries to keep these children happy and fed and turning as violet as Violet Beauregard if they want to be.
Because of their insatiable love for the things and a HUGE sale at Whole Foods last week, I stocked up on about 2 pounds of blueberries and then realized that I might want some of the things… at least to make some muffins for our vacation, or something. Because I love to procrastinate from packing for a long trip by making baked goods. In addition to the muffins I also made two loaves of my famous Zucchini Bread, because, you know, packing sucks.
I learned a few things from making these muffins.
A) Do not, I repeat, do NOT over mix muffins. They will turn into hockey pucks and this is NOT a good thing. Like seriously, two or three turns around the bowl, even if it’s not mixed all the way. Resist the urge to mix more (not like I’m speaking from experience or anything) and do NOT make these in your mixer. Your bowl, your spatula and your own two hands will be just right.
B) Lemon and Blueberries? Amazing combination. AMAZING.
C) Blueberry muffins are perfect vacation food. You know, besides the beer and wine and hot dogs and such.
Lemon-Scented Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
2 Cups White Flour
1 Cup minus 2 TB Whole Wheat Flour – I know, I can’t help but try and health-ify them somewhat. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.
1 Tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
1 Egg
1 Cup of Plain Greek Yogurt
2 Cups of Fresh Blueberries -but you can use frozen if that’s what you have available. Just make sure not to defrost them beforehand.
Vanilla Extract
Zest of One Lemon- make sure not to zest the pith, or the white part, it’s pretty bitter.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 385 degrees.
In a bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.
In another bowl, stir together the sugar, oil, egg, yogurt, vanilla and lemon zest.
Here’s a tip… you can sift the bejeezus out of the dry ingredients and stir the wet ingredients as much as you want. Just do NOT over-mix them once they get together.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir them literally no more than 5 times around the bowl. It will seem weird because they may not be totally mixed together but seriously, no more unless you want the hardest muffins ever.
Add the blueberries, but save about 1/2 a cup. Mix them in, stirring no more than 2-3 times.
Place the blueberry mixture in well-buttered muffin tins and then place the remaining blueberries on top. I sprinkled the top with a little extra sugar just for yum factor.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until they come out clean with a knife but do NOT over-bake… it adds to the hockey puck factor. Let them cool completely and then DEVOUR!
