Blueberry Buckle Muffins

Thank you for all the comments (and emails!) on my last post. After some deep breaths and some personal clarification, I’m back to feeling excited and confident about what lies ahead, in huge part due to all of your wonderful words of encouragement.

Zeb is enjoying the last hours of a sleepover, which makes my use of the following recipe from FamilyFun: Cooking with Kids a little funny. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this cookbook before but we really enjoy it. The recipes call for natural, mostly whole foods ingredients (or can be converting to whole foods ingredients easily), are very tasty and are pretty simple. They list “Kids Steps” (which we ignore) and bless them, the dang thing lies flat. Seriously, why don’t all cookbooks lie flat?

This is my favorite recipe from the book. They taste good with or without the topping and we easily convert them to whole wheat and use organic ingredients. I hope you enjoy it!

Blueberry Buckle Muffins

Toppings:

1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour (we use whole wheat)
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, room temp (not too soft!)

Muffins:

1/4 cup butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar (organic evaporated cane juice)
2 eggs (fresh from the backyard)
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
2 cups flour (whole wheat for us)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 cups blueberries (fresh is best, but thawed works too. Recipe calls for 2 cups but we rarely use that much)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 12 muffin cups (book says to line them with paper bake cups which we never use; we grease it with organic palm oil shortening and they come out great).

2. To make the topping: In a small bowl, mix together sugar, flour and cinnamon. Work the butter in until the misture is crumbly, then set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. [Do you best to eat this straight.] Beat in the eggs, then the milk and vanilla extract.

4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium mixing bowl. Pour over the wet ingredients and stir well, but do not overmix. [I don't do this. I just throw the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients so I have fewer dishes.]

5. Fold in the berries. Evenly spoon the batter into the muffin cups (an ice cream scoop works well). Generously sprinkle the crumbly topping on each muffin.

6. Bake until the muffins are lightly brown and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes.

7. Lick the bowl and snicker at the fact that your 10 year old isn’t here to hog it. And set a few muffins aside for your husband’s lunch before you eat them all.

Yum!