Eiley's Blueberry Muffins

One fall morning, Eiley looked up from her crafting (making her own font!) and said, "Can we have muffins? I love muffins." We had blueberries in the freezer and just enough butter and yogurt to pull this off - 45 minutes later, we had muffins. Perfect muffins.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries
• 1 Tbsp flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

Steps

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the grated lemon peel.
4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.
5. Fold in the berries. If you are using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour.
6. Use standard 12-muffin muffin tins. Coat each muffin cup lightly with one of those convenient vegetable oil sprays. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups.
7. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick (we use a thin bamboo skewer) to make sure the centers of the muffins are done.
8. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

Yield: 12-16 muffins.