Friday muffins

Happy Friday errbody! I am so excited because I got to bake (from scratch!) last night! I made blueberry cream cheese muffins. I found the recipe from Glamour magazine & have wanted to make it for a while now. I finally broke down, went to Kroger & got all the stuff and made two batches last night!



This is before they headed into the oven



Pretty much you whip all the ingredients together, scoop half in a cupcake tin, put a dab of cream cheese, then cover it with more batter & another dollop of cream cheese on the top. They are delightful! :) I may try it a different way next time: It called for regular cream cheese, light yogurt, flour, etc. So next time I'd be curious about using Greek yogurt, whole wheat flour, etc. - make it a little healthier! I know you can substitute apple sauce for oil maybe? So I will look into that. Here's the recipe:

(This will make 12 BIG muffins)

Ingredients:

7 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3 Tbsp. sunflower or vegetable oil
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3 & 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
Just under 1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
6 oz. blueberries
4 oz. cream cheese


Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line your muffin pan with cupcake wrappers. Melt butter in a medium pan over low heat - stirring to melt. Once melted, remove from heat; whisk in oil, yogurt, vanilla & eggs.

Sift flour & baking powder into a separate, large bowl. Stir in the sugar & salt, then make a well in the middle. "Well" is a opening in the middle (I'm guessing) :)

Pour the yogurt mixutre into the flour well. Lightly FOLD the dry ingredients into the wet using a rubber spatula until the mixture has just come together. Pour in the blueberries, working them into the batter with the bare minimum of stirring; I would continue to FOLD the blueberries in, just until they seemed mixed throughout - but definitely be gentle with them! :) (The mixture will look lumpy)

Spoon half the batter into the prepared baking cups. Dot about 1/2 tsp (this doesn't have to be exact - just a dollop; but make sure you have enough CC for all 12 of your cupcakes) of the cream cheese on top of the batter in each half-filled muffin cup. Add remaining batter, then another 1/2 tsp of cream cheese on each muffin. Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes or until golden. Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack & let them cool completely. Then you will have...

Trays of yumminess!

I am definitely turning into my mama :) Cooking relaxes her and baking seems to do the same for me. Aaaah... the smell of baked goods in the house isn't too bad either.