Whole Wheat Blueberry Crumb Muffins

“Meet Me in St. Louis” is over!  I have my life back!  😉

Our book club book for this month is “Stargirl” by Jerry Spinelli.

I finished watching “Fed Up” on Netflix.  It has been released for a while now and worth watching.  The basic premise is that the American public has been told for the past 30 years to eat a low fat diet in accordance with the American Heart Association recommendations and yet obesity rates are going up.  One of their main contentions is that sugar consumption is up.  The other is the amount of cheese we are encouraged to eat due to the lobbying of the Cheese Lobbyists.

Websites like Science Based Medicine go through the statistics and point out which ones are false or skewed.  Other websites believe the movie doesn’t go far enough.  The reality is probably somewhere in the middle like it always is. For a list of the “FED UP” Facts and fact checking, FoodinSight has done a great job delving into the details.

But all in all, it is an interesting movie educates those of us that don’t read the American Journal of Medicine each month 🙂  Though anyone citing studies I think needs read “How to Lie with Statistics”.  That’s another good book too – and short!

Recipe:

Here’s a great recipe for a Mother’s Day brunch, breakfast or any time of day.  These muffins are based on the “To Die For Blueberry Muffins” recipe at allrecipes.com that has over 7,000 reviews.  Yes, 7,000!  It was posted over ten years ago – most of the ones on allrecipes that have tons of reviews have been on the web for like more than a decade.

You can also make these the original way with all purpose flour.  They will not have that slighty wheat-y taste.

The original recipe also uses vegetable oil for its fat.  This yields a more tender muffin.  Or, you can use applesauce.   Applesauce often creates a less tender and more gummy muffin, but most of us don’t mind or even notice.   The fat is good for you, you say?  Why yes it is!  Which is why my muffins get split and slathered with great gobs of but-tuh.  Or avocado.  Ew avocado and blueberries…. maybe not.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Crumb Muffins

 

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: Mary Ellen P. Riley / Whisk Together

Ingredients

• 1 and ½ cups white whole wheat flour
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil or applesauce
• 1 egg
• ⅓ cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
• Topping:
• 2 Tb. butter, 4 Tb. flour, 4 Tb. brown sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line or grease a muffin pan.
2. In a great big bowl mix up the dry stuff: flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt and baking powder.
3. In a medium bowl mix the wet stuff: vegetable oil, egg, milk and vanilla.
4. Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and fold in to combine. Leave some flour streaks.
5. Fold in the blueberries.
6. Divide the batter between the wells. Sometimes I get only 10 muffins instead of 12.
7. Mix the topping ingredients in another bowl. It will form crumbles.
8. Top the batter with the topping and gently press down.
9. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center clean.

Notes

If using frozen blueberries and you do not want any blue streaks at all, then you can rinse the blueberries in a colander and pat dry on a paper towel. This should eliminate that purple muffin color that sometimes results from using frozen blueberries.

To avoid the blueberries falling to the bottom, toss them in a tablespoon of the dry ingredients before mixing.

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

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