De- LIGHT –ful Blueberry Muffins
Betty (as in Crocker) rarely lets me down. Her recipes aren’t exotic or fancy, but when it comes to the basics, I think her cookbooks and recipes are among the best … except the blueberry muffins. Her recipe calls for a streusel topping that probably isn’t complicated to make, but just seems like a hassle on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning. Without the topping, which contains nearly all of the recipe’s sugar, the muffins are tart and nearly tasteless.
So this morning I went a-Googling for something better. I’m a fan of light cooking so searched for “Cooking Light blueberry muffins.” I found a Cooking Light community forum and a recipe posted by KCSoccer from Susan Purdy’s Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too: Two Hundred Luscious, Low-Fat Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Puddings, and Other Desserts You Thought You Could Never Eat Again.
The recipe was easy to prepare and tasted great. It also included an option for baking it in a square pan, which was fantastic because I hate washing muffin pans with a passion.
Old-Fashioned Blueberry Muffins
1 large egg
1/2 cup skim milk — or 1%
1/2 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted (can substitute wheat flour for ½ the amount)
1 tablespoon — plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Granulated sugar
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.
Coat pan with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, yogurt, oil and sugar.
Set a strainer over the bowl and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir and sift the dry ingredients onto the egg mixture, then stir just to blend. Don’t overbeat.
Fold in the berries.
Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle tops with a little sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins are well risen and golden brown, and a cake tester inserted in a muffin comes out clean (requires about 10 more minutes in cake pan, but begin checking for doneness at 20 minutes).
Cool muffins in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 163 Calories; 4g Fat (22.3% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 28g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 16mg Cholesterol; 243mg Sodium.
NOTE: This recipes works equally well as a coffee cake baked in an 8×8 (bake 25 to 30 minutes).