Blissful Blueberry Muffins

 

We had a reason to celebrate this morning…our son woke up with his first loose tooth!  So, we made muffins.  Though, you really don’t need anything more to celebrate than just waking up in the morning to enjoy these splendiferous little morsels!

This is an adaptation of a vegan blueberry muffin recipe that can be found all over the internet.  I’ve taken that recipe, decreased the fat and sugar, made it whole grain, and created an even healthier and more delicious muffin.  When my son tried the first one he shouted “Mom,  these muffins are AMAZING!!”.  I can’t imagine a better review!  🙂

NOTE: (#1) This time I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup spelt flour, but you can really use any of a number of whole grain flours.  Any combination of garbanzo, spelt or whole wheat pastry flours would be good.  If you want to play it safe though, just start with 2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour.  (#2) Regarding sweeteners, if you choose a dry sweetener (which I recommend), like evaporated cane juice, date sugar or coconut sugar, add it with the dry ingredients.  If you decide that you’d rather use a wet sweetener, like agave nectar, honey, date paste or pure maple syrup, add it with the wet ingredients.

Yields 12 muffins

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups whole grain flour (whole wheat pastry flour)

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sweetener (evaporated cane juice, date sugar or coconut sugar)

3 Tablespoons non-dairy margarine (like Earth Balance), softened or melted

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup almond milk or soymilk

2 cups frozen blueberries – do not thaw.  Toss with 1 Tablespoon flour just before adding to batter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly spray a muffin tin with cooking spray, or drop one paper liner into each cup.

2. Place dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and combine with a wire whisk.  Create a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients.

3. Add the wet ingredients to the well in the center of the bowl.  Use a wooden spoon and stir until wet and dry ingredients are all incorporated into a thick batter.  Do not over stir. If it looks too thick (like cookie dough) add a little more non-dairy milk.  If it’s too wet, add a little flour.  You want a nice, thick muffin batter.  DON’T ADD the blueberries yet!

4. Finally, add the flour-dusted frozen blueberries to the batter.  Keep them frozen as long as you can, so that you don’t end up with purple muffins.

5. Fill each muffin tin about 3/4 full of batter.

6. Bake 35 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.  Also, remember to give the pan a 180 degree turn about halfway through the cooking time.

7.  Cool muffins in the tin for about 5 min. then finish cooling on a wire rack.