Muffins - Top and Stump

Did you ever watch the Seinfeld episode where Elaine would only eat the muffin tops? Like most episodes it was odd but humorous - but to be honest she does have a point about the tops they are crunchy, explosive and delicious. 

We dodged the snow bullet this weekend - which I am very grateful for because I am so over the snow. I’ve been slowly uncovering some of the perennial gardens - not all of them and definitely have not been raking the yard. It’s too early and the bees and butterflies are not ready to come out yet - so hang in there. I know, I know we only have a short growing season in MN but we need the bees to pollenate our trees and other plants. 

I did make a trip to Menards to get some seeds for the garden, we’ll be planting, spinach, lettuce, kale, cilantro, parsley, and dill. There will of course be beets, beans, peas, squash (acorn, zucchini and patty pan). We’ll do plants - tomatoes, pumpkins, maybe onions, Japanese eggplant, peppers (green, red, ancho and poblano) and of course herbs in pots on the deck. Looking forward to another year of deliciousness. 

We’ve been on an orange kick lately - thanks to my friend Barb Gale who turned us on to Cara Cara oranges a few years ago, we’ve been hooked and last week Dan found a very large bag at Costco - just at the same time I came home with bananas and blueberries - needless to say we had too much. We managed to get through the oranges and most of the blueberries but the bananas started to spot before we could get to all of them. 

You might recall this happened recently and we ended up with banana bread, which is delicious, but I wanted to use up the rest of the blueberries because I bought strawberries yesterday - food around here is a balancing act believe me. 

When I started the baking project this morning I was not totally awake and horrified when I accidentally grabbed the cumin instead of the cinnamon and put it in the muffins - not to worry, I was able to get most of it out and added a bit of additional cinnamon - it was all good. You could also use either all white flour or 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat in the recipe below - I decided to give whole wheat a try. 

Ingredients

2 large eggs

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

2 medium-size, ripe bananas, mashed 

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup oats

1 cup + 2 Tbsp whole wheat flour

1 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350. Use cupcake liners or spray a 12 muffin pan with cooking spray - set aside. 

In a large mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs until the yolks break apart.  Add in the yogurt, bananas, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, cinnamon, and oats mixing until smooth.

Spoon in the flour and gently stir it in until just combined. Toss the blueberries in 1 Tbsp of flour to prevent them from bleeding or sinking to the bottom of the muffins, and fold them into the batter.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling almost to the top. Add a sprinkle of sugar, if desired.

Bake for 20 - 22 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins begin to turn golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for ~5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.