Mmm...muffins

I've been back in my homestead for a few days now, and fell right back into my meal making role. My kids were so thrilled with the blueberry muffins for breakfast yesterday that their respons to my plan to make lemon-blueberry muffins was: why can't we have pancakes? I told them to make 'em themselves. We had another huge batch of lemons from our tree, and that house (knock on huge chunks of wood) will soon be sold, so want to get as many lemons as possible. I headed over to trusty food blog search and snagged a few recipes.

I ended up making these scruptious muffins from imafoodblog (love that name) with a few adaptations. I doubled the recipe, replaced half the flour with whole wheat, and used yogurt and a little extra lemon juice instead of buttermilk (I'd run out of buttermilk). I also used a combination of vegetable, coconut and olive oil. The kids still loved them, even though they weren't pancakes.

Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Adapted from Baking by Dorie Greenspan by Sara at imafoodblog.com and then by me

1 1/3 cup sugar
zest and juice of 2 1/2 lemons
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour (or maybe whole wheat/white)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (okay, I forgot to add that :)
1 1/2 full fat greek yogurt
4 large eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup oil (1/2 coconut/2 T olive/rest veg)
2 cups slightly defrosted blueberries

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 400F. Prepare your muffin pan or whatever muffin cooking apparatus you will be using, and place on a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, rub together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and you can smell the lemon.
3. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. In another bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk (yogurt), eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and oil until well blended.
5. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula gently and quickly stir to blend. Do not over-mix.
6. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly in 24 muffin cups (this actually made 24 regular size and 12 mini muffins). I also used an ice cream scoop to measure this out.
7. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool for about 5 minutes, and then remove them from the molds and let cool to room temperature.