I have certainly been on a big baking kick lately. I think it has been partially brought on by the responsibility of making snacks for CSA every week this summer. So today I decided that some breakfast muffins sounded great. Usually Tyler gets a hankering for blueberry muffins and I generally make them from a mix. Fresh blueberries don’t come here, frozen ones (if I can find them) are way overpriced so I cheat. But today I decided to make some from scratch using a recipe in my trusty cookbook. I am not a fan of plain muffins, so I course picked a jazzed up version. I actually was thinking of making apricot almond muffins but part way through I realized I had eaten most of the dried apricots I had (oops!) and then remembered I had some delicious raspberry jam I should use up – so really it worked out great.

What You Need:

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. almond extract
8 Tbs. butter melted and cooled
1/4 cup raspberry jam or preserves 

Preheat oven to 375 and line or spay your muffin tin. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In another  bowl whisk together eggs and yogurt and extract in a large bowl.

Gently fold in the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients until just blended. Fold in the melted butter. The batter is very dough-like rather than soft and runny.

The batter - it comes out really doughy.

Into each muffin cup spoon about 2 Tbs. of batter. Add 1 tsp. of raspberry jam to the center of each muffin. Top muffins with remaining batter evenly and bake for about 20-25 mins or until golden brown and tester comes out clean.

For added pizzaz, I usually add a light sprinkling of sugar to the top of each muffin right before baking. It is something I learned to do as a kid when my Grandma taught me how to make muffins from scratch. I don’t know if she necessarily taught me to do it that way or if my 9 year-old self just thought homemade muffins just were not sweet enough. Now I do it for the little crunch it gives on top.

Out of the oven goodness - nice and golden

Enjoy!