Low Fat Blueberry Muffins

Bottom to Top: LowFat Bluberry Muffins, Zucchini Muffins, leftover Vanilla Cupcakes.

I love blueberries. I love them fresh, in scones, in crumbles, in smoothies, pretty much any way I can get 'em! But my most favorite thing to do with them is turn them into muffins. There are so many different recipes out there, and I love trying new ones to see how they're different. My old stand-by is my Mom's recipe which is delicious, but not exactly the healthiest.

Going through my collection, I found a "low fat" recipe. I'm always super skeptical about "low fat" anything when it comes to baking, it's been my experience that I should just suck it up and use full fat whatever is called for.

That said, there are some great tricks and substitutes that work great without compromising flavor, like soy milk (but not light, I always use Silk brand plain and it works quite well wherever you would use milk because it doesn't have a strong taste and it's got a pretty creamy consistency), applesauce in place of eggs (doesn't work all the time, but great for loaf cakes where there's generally a pretty dominant flavor ingredient like bananas), or sour cream instead of butter (but still, I always use full fat sour cream, and again, it doesn't work in every recipe).

However, I was pleasantly surprised by how these muffins turned out. They are very moist and fluffy, I haven't yet been disappointed by a blueberry muffin!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup non-fat milk (I used soy)

2 tbsp. canola oil

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 to 1 1/4 cups blueberries (I always go a little heavy on the berries)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin or line with papers.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together milk, oil, and the egg.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients. Stir just until blended. Fold in blueberries. Batter will be lumpy.

Fill muffing cups 2/3 full and bake 18 to 20 minutes, until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12 muffins.