Color Kitchen

Berry Pretty Muffins!

Muffins are surprisingly easy to make! Who knew? The basics are these:

2 cups flour (you can use whole wheat, regular, or oat bran, or any combination of the three. For this recipe I used 1 cup whole wheat, 1/2 cup white flour, and 1/2 cup oat bran).

2 teaspoons fast-acting baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar (optional, but highly recommended. I like brown turbinado…)

1 cup milk (skim, whole, low-fat, coconut, almond, soy…whichever)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup butter or oil (though I substitute this with 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce and 1/2 cup pure cranberry juice. this cuts way down on the fats but keeps things moist).

2 eggs, beaten well (vegans can skip this and double the applesauce)

Mix all your dry things together in a big bowl.

Mix all your wet things together in a different bowl (beat the eggs first).

Then mix the two bowls together using a beater or a strong arm. 

For this recipe, I added 1 cup frozen blueberries, 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1/4 cup dried cranberries and 1 mashed banana to the mix, folding them into the mixture gently. It helps if you soak your dried cranberries in a small bowl of water for at least 10 minutes beforehand. 

Pour into 12 cupcake liners in a cupcake tray, place in a pre-heated oven at 375F. Check on them in 20 minutes; do the toothpick test (if it comes out clean, your ready). 

Especially if you skipped the butter/oil/whole milk, you really have to let these muffins cool before you try to eat them.

I recommend taking them out of the cupcake pan after about 10 minutes, and letting them stand at least 1 hour. Otherwise they stick to the paper lining and are annoying to eat. This isn’t really a problem if you didn’t skimp on the fats, but we all choose our battles, I guess…

With these guidelines, there are TONS of variations for the making! Go for it, let us know what you come up with!

(Photo by Mia Tramz)