This past Monday was the Family Day holiday in New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan (yay to a long weekend!). Our American friends also were off on Monday celebrating Presidents Day. Two other provinces have holidays in February: PEI Islander Day is celebrated on the third Monday in February which is also Louis Riel Day if you live in Manitoba. Yesterday, however, was a day that everyone could share – February 20th was National Muffin Day! Now, you didn’t get the day off work, but what did you do to celebrate?
Over at Travel*Food*Cool central, we celebrated National Muffin Day by whipping up a batch of Blueberry Vanilla Lemon Muffins! These muffins (like all our baking at TFC) are a snap to make. The blueberries came from the freezer (I throw them into ziplock bags when they are in season and freeze them – they come in handy for Steel Cut Oats Overnight), so this is a good recipe for those winter months with little bursts of blueberry goodness and a wonderful zest of lemon. Lemon and blueberries are besties, and they love hanging out with their friend vanilla! [To be honest, I had vanilla Greek yogurt in the fridge – you can also use plain Greek yogurt if you like, as these didn’t taste very vanilla-y].
Happy belated National Muffin Day! To celebrate, you can also try Banana Chocolate Redemption Muffins and Cherry Bomb Muffins. You can also Pin this recipe for July 11 which is National Blueberry Muffin Day! Enjoy!
Prep time: 10 minutes; Cook time: 25 – 30 minutes; Serves: 12; Nutrition: (according to MyFitnessPal) 290 calories/muffin
What you need:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tsp grated lemon zest (if you are not a huge lemon lover, you can reduce this amount)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups Vanilla Greek Low Fat Yogurt
- 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
- 1 tbsp flour (to toss blueberries)
- Cooking spray for the muffin tins
What you do:
- Preheat oven to 375°F; adjust rack to lower-middle position of the oven
- In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stir together
- In a separate bowl, add the oil, maple syrup, Vanilla Greek yogurt, lemon zest and eggs, beat together
- Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until combined
- Toss blueberries in 1 tbsp flour to coat (why? it keeps the frozen blueberries from sticking together and from bleeding too much into the batter)
- Fold blueberries into batter
- Spray muffin tins with non-stick spray
- Divide batter into 12 cups
- Bake 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown
- Place on rack to cool about 5 minutes
- Yum!
- Fresh baked muffin goodness!
- Easy peasy, blueberry vanilla lemon muffins!
- These are so good, you don’t need butter!
- Enjoy!
- Happy belated National Muffin Day!
