Friday Night Foodie: Muffins!

My mother used to make blueberry muffins on Saturday mornings.  The smell of baked goods threading from the kitchen to my bed room, rousting me from sleep, more than enough motivation to abandon the warmth of the pile of sheets and blankets, pillows and stuffed animals.  A few years later I would help her, stirring in tiny purple berries, watching the juice swirl like paint at the tip of a paint brush, licking the spoon after filling the muffin tins and sliding them into the oven.  In college I often treated myself to a health breakfast of Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chocolate chip muffins and a diet coke (because that made it not so bad) before I went to my 8 AM English class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Muffins have been a sort perpetual comfort food reaching from childhood on into my adult life.  Typically, I've stuck to the same box mix my mother used, after all, the simple dump and stir rarely failed even a baking dunce like myself.  Tried and true recipes I have no problem with, but venturing off the beaten path and I often find myself with rubbery cake, crunchy cookies, and pumpkin bread that looks like meatloaf.  So for me, attempting a new muffin recipe certainly poses a challenge and, as expected, results in the infamous kitchen disaster.  

 

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 cup white rice flour (I used brown rice flour because it's what I had)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon or lime zest
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

The batter turned out very, very thick and literally flung in every direction.  See my shirt?  Covered in batter...

Fresh blue berries.

425 for 15-20 minutes in greased muffin tins.

The good: delicious!  Absolutely lovely.

The bad: very, very thick and messy…this was mostly my own fault.  I should have followed the direction in order of operations ;-)

The ugly: I used blueberries that were a little past their prime…so I kind of ended up pulling them out as I ate them and just ate, well, plain muffins.

This recipe is definitely a do again!