Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins!

Time for another baking project! I'm going for a new baked good just about every week now. While not all of them are blog worthy (a repeat recipe cinnamon roll batch and a last-minute pizza--see below), I did enjoy experimenting with a recipe my mom gave me for blueberry coffee cake. Since I didn't have the 9x13-inch pan or the yogurt she used in her original recipe, I opted to make muffins with half the batter, and a loaf cake with the other half. I think it turned out quite nicely for such an adaptation. Let's call them Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins:

Ingredients:

2 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour plus extra for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Dash of salt

1 and 1/3 cups brown sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup of oil

12 ounces buttermilk (instead of yogurt that my mom used)

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups frozen blueberries (Mom's original recipe called for fresh blueberries but this was all I had)

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

2.) In a separate bowl combine the brown sugar, egg, oil, buttermilk, and applesauce. Slowly and carefully add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined, then pour the batter in 12 muffin cups lined with paper and a loaf pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

3.) Rinse the blueberries and dust them in a little bit of flour so they won't sink in the muffins. Drop about 4-6 blueberries into each muffin, pushing them deeper into the batter with a spoon. Layer just a little bit of extra batter on top of the blueberries in the muffins so they can barely be seen. Fold the rest of the blueberries into the loaf pan batter.

4.) Bake the muffins and the loaf separately for approximately 22 minutes each (may be a little light on the muffins, but I like them that way. The loaf came out perfect with the toothpick test).

5.) Allow both to cool slightly before eating! You can spread butter on the loaf or eat the muffins with sugar dusted on top.

These turned out nice and fluffy with just the right amount of sweetness without being too sweet. I like how the muffins rose and spread to a nice size as well. And then there's the health factor--less guilt with whole wheat flour, applesauce, and blueberries to make this treat a little more wholesome. It really hit the spot when I taste tested the loaf for breakfast and the muffins for lunch!

Cinnamon rolls and pizza from this week:

It's good to be baking again.