A healthier take on blueberry muffins

Last weekend I had a couple of different things cooking at the same time, including a loaf of bread. My husband came out and asked if I was baking muffins, because that’s what he smelled. When I told him that there were no muffins in the oven, he was a little bit disappointed, so of course I had to remedy that. I put together this recipe for blueberry yogurt muffins for a healthier take on an old classic.

I think that sometimes muffins can be so sweet that they’re almost like a cupcake. To me, that’s fine for a snack, but I don’t usually like to eat an overly sweet breakfast. These muffins are just slightly sweetened, which really lets the flavor of the blueberries come through.

I used vanilla sugar to sweeten the muffins. If you don't already have a jar in your pantry, I encourage you to get one started. After you scrape the seeds from your vanilla beans, don't throw the pods away. Instead, store the pods in a jar of sugar. When the sugar gets low, just refill the jar and add new vanilla bean pods as you use them.

I made these muffins a little healthier by keeping the butter to a minimum, and instead relied on Oikos greek yogurt from Stonyfield Farm to add moisture. I also used half white whole wheat flour.

I was quite happy with the end result – you get all the goodness of a blueberry muffin with a much better nutritional profile. If you like your muffins on the sweeter side, you may want to increase the sugar by 2 tablespoons or ¼ cup, but I think these are great as is.

Blueberry yogurt muffins
Makes 12

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 eggs
8 ounces of vanilla greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
cooking spray
coarse sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the first six ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl combine the butter, lemon zest and juice, eggs, yogurt and vanilla extract. Add the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle the coarse sugar over the tops of the muffins. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until golden.