Looking for Life's Easy Button

This blog has been quiet recently on account of work and some family drama... but mainly work. Lately everything has been happening all at the same time and I find myself exhausted and looking for life's easy button. I promise I'll let you know when I find it, until then here is a fabulous recipe for gluten-free muffins.

It doesn't look like much so what's so great about this muffin?  Well these muffins wake you up. Seriously. They are the kick your ass out of bed, put a smile on your face even though you don't feel like smiling muffins. Yeah these are those guys. They sound like this. I know they are a departure from my regular healthy, whole-grain  breakfast muffins but I do have to tell you, recently I've been needing a whole lotta kick ass to roll me out to face the days.

I have said before that I love how quickly muffins can be put together. This recipe is a little different. You can't just dump the ingredients into one bowl and mix. First you must cream the butter and sugar before combining the wet and dry ingredients. Your reward for this little extra effort will be a muffin that has a tender cake-like crumb.

Warm from the oven, oozing sticky blueberries and slathered with even more sweet butter, I can't think of a better way to chase away morning blues than with cake masquerading as a muffin for breakfast, can you?


Blueberry Muffins Gluten-Free
(NB: This recipe works just as well if you swap out the gluten free flour for regular all purpose flour)

3 cups of Dove's farm Gluten Free white flour

1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 Tbsp unsalted butter or 1 1/4 stick, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yoghurt
1 teaspoon grated lime or orange peel
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (defrosted)
1 tbsp flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

Method

Use standard 12-muffin muffin tins. Coat each muffin cup lightly with butter. Set your oven rack to the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until it turns a pale yellow colour. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each one. Add the grated lime or orange peel.

Add one half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat until it is only just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yoghurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yoghurt. Add the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yoghurt. Beat until just incorporated. Do not over mix. Fold in the berries with a wooden spoon. If using defrosted berries drain the excess liquid and coat them with a light dusting of flour before folding in.

Distribute the muffin batter equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test for  a thin bamboo skewer or a toothpick to see that the enters are cooked. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.
Makes 12 muffins.