Recipe: Fruit and Yogurt Muffins

As I promised, here’s the recipe for my fruit and yogurt muffins. I call them this because of my picky family. Some of us prefer blueberries, some of us prefer strawberries and there are others of us who are stuck with bananas when the strawberries grow moldy. Then there are the select few that get stuck with blueberry + banana yogurt muffins when there aren’t any other options. So, in an effort to be concise, these are simply fruit and yogurt muffins.

I must admit that I did not create this recipe: it came from Savory Sweet Life in the form of blackberry yogurt muffins. However, we do not like blackberries in this household, so blueberries and strawberries bananas it is!

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Do you see those deceptive strawberries??? For shame!

Here’s Savory Sweet Life’s recipe, with my minor modifications.

Blackberry Fruit and Yogurt Muffins
Author: Savory Sweet Life, as adapted by Curly hair Caribbean flair
Recipe type: Bread
Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 35 mins
Serves: 12 16

Ingredients
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 cup 2% honey Greek yogurt
¼ cup skim milk
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1½ cups fresh blueberries, or 3/4 cup of two different fruits that are similar in size

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Using a hand/stand mixer, cream the butter and sugars on medium speed for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, waiting for each egg to be mixed in before adding another. Add the yogurt, milk, and almond extract. Mix until the yogurt is combined.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix the batter until smooth and there are no lumps, about 2 minutes.
Gently fold in the blueberries/strawberries/diced banana/what have you.
Spray a generous amount of non-stick spray into a crumbled paper towel and grease the top of a muffin tin (I’m lazy and I never do this step. I’ve never had a messy post-baking cleanup yet.) Line the tin with 12 paper baking cups. (See my notes below: you may need two muffin tins.) Fill each tin ⅔ full.
Bake muffins for 12 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 13 more minutes or until the center of the muffins springs back when touched.
Allow the muffins to cook in the tin for 3-5 minutes before removing.

A few notes:
I only have skim milk in my house, so that’s what I used. It worked just fine. My muffins are incredibly moist, and are consistently so each time that I make them.

Likewise, I could only find Fage’s individual 2% yogurt cups with the honey mix-in. It worked great! I personally love the rich thickness that Greek yogurt has, so that’s what I use. On occasion, I’ve used my normal Fage 0% yogurt, and mixed in a few tablespoons of whatever honey I’ve happened to have on hand. This is extremely successful! When in doubt, just fudge it out! (My new motto, haha.)

My partner loves blueberries, so I always make half a batch of muffins with blueberries. Normally, I reward myself for being so thoughtful by making the other half of the batch of muffins with strawberries that I’ve dehulled, and quartered. No such reward this time, however, because I waited too long to use said strawberries. Mold is not fun. So, I frantically looked around my kitchen, and saw … a banana. I know, I was dubious about the results, especially because I do not like banana bread. :0 I sliced the banana in half and each half in half, then diced those halves into slightly larger than one inch pieces. I mixed it in to my half of the muffins, baked them all and … What do you know?! Those banana yogurt muffins were darn tasty! The banana pieces were the appropriate amount of warm, malleable and not overly banana-y. Absolutely delish!

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Lovely muffin batter, just waiting to be baked.

Last note: for some reason, whenever I make these muffins, I always end up with 16 muffins, instead of 12. I’m not complaining – I just thought you should know.

So, take a crack at this recipe! Toss whatever fruit or berry you like into this batter, it’s pretty forgiving. Your taste buds will thank you for it!

Fruit and Yogurt Muffins

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I’m pretty much running on empty right now. Not a good way to start this blog, but what can I do? It’s just been one of those days, I guess! Luckily I’d baked these beauties just yesterday in anticipation of a day like today. Yum! I’m going to eat one right now … I promise to share the recipe later.