Muffins Make a Quick (and Cheap!) Breakfast

© Marie Anne St. Jean

Is there anything better with your cup of coffee or tea than a warm muffin, fresh from the oven?  Yes, mornings are crazy with getting ready for work, hustling kids off to school or daycare, but it's almost as easy (and definitely cheaper) to mix up a batch of fresh muffins as it is to fix a bowl of cereal or throw bread in the toaster.  Even better?  Fix a few batches when you have a little more time and freeze them, then reheat in the microwave as needed.  The kids can take a muffin or two out of the freezer and fix their own breakfast.

The blueberry muffins I fixed this morning took only minutes to throw together, then about 20-25 minutes to bake.  You could whip them up just as easily and they could be baking while you're in the shower.

I used the silicone cupcake liners I bought recently and absolutely love them (I got the jumbo sized silicone liners later and love them even more).  They're the next best thing to sliced bread!  No need to grease these when making muffins, just fill and bake, and they peel off beautifully.  I started with a recipe from my old Betty Crocker cookbook, then modified it just a touch.  My muffins are somewhere between the basic muffin recipe and the sweet version and made one dozen muffins using standard size silicone cupcake liners.  If you use a cupcake pan that makes larger muffins, obviously you'll get less than a dozen from this recipe.

Quick and Easy Blueberry Muffins

1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder (3 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained well

If using muffin tin, grease bottom only.  If using silicone liners or paper cupcake liners, there is no need to grease.

Silicone cupcake liners make baking muffins even easier
© Marie Anne St. Jean

Mix egg slightly, add milk and oil.  Add remaining ingredients and mix with a large spoon only until flour is moistened well, adding blueberries last.

Spoon batter into muffin pan or liner, filling approximately 3/4 full.  Bake 20-25 minutes in a preheated 400° oven.  These muffins will brown only slightly when done, so don't overbake.

Muffin variations - It's easy to make a variety of muffins by switching out the blueberries for another fruit.  For cranberry muffins, make sure to chop or at least cut in half so that they don't explode in the oven; add a bit of grated orange peel for just a touch of citrus flavor.  Since cranberries are a more tart fruit, adding just a little more sugar might be more to your liking.  Blackberries and raspberries can be added whole, but if making strawberry muffins, chop or cut them into smaller pieces.

What is your favorite type of muffin?  What other combinations would you like to try?

~ Marie Anne