FFG--Yogurt Muffins

My dear friend Lori hosts Friday Farm Girls at Heart every week;

please click on her button above to visit her blog

and find out how you can participate!

I've been hooked on muffins for several weeks now.  Meaning, once I found a new recipe, tried it, and liked it, I started finding muffin recipes everywhere!  I shared in earlier posts about how I'm trying to keep my recipe binder down to just one binder--why do I need 25 muffin recipes?--and I'm sticking to my guns.

Several versatile recipes are all I need to change things up a bit.  For example, I began with maple crumb muffins.  Then when I didn't have the sour cream needed for those, I searched and found a recipe using cottage cheese.  Yep, you guessed it--I was low on both of those ingredients, but I had some yogurt in the fridge!  The search began, and I found the recipe below.

When I say versatile, I like muffin recipes to which you can add fruit, for example.  I also like changing the flavor by adding lemon or orange peel, a different flavor yogurt, or extra cinnamon and a dash of freshly grated nutmeg.  With these yogurt muffins, I didn't have lemon yogurt--the recipe was billed as "lemon yogurt muffins"--but I did have banana mango yogurt, so I used that.  I made these a second time, and added blueberries to the batter.  Serious yummies.  I also doubled the batch, and, since I have only one muffin tray, I made mini bread loaves with the second batch in my four-loaf mini bread pan.  We're saving those for Sunday morning breakfast when the household is bustling with church service preparations.

As I've written before, make "muffins for breakfast" even easier by prepping the evening before.  Mix together the dry ingredients, cover, and leave on the counter.  Set the butter in the bowl, cover, and leave on the counter to soften overnight.  Pull out the mixer, measuring cup(s), and other tools.  Set the muffin tins out and line them with papers.  It's amazing how quickly breakfast comes together when I do this!

Here's the recipe.  I usually use freshly ground whole-wheat pastry flour in my recipes, which means that the amount of flour listed is a little more than what the recipe called for.  But just a little!

Yogurt Muffins

1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup cane juice crystals (or sugar)
2 eggs
3/4 cup yogurt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
dash freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons (or more) lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Line muffin tray with papers.  In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the yogurt and lemon juice.  Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg; stir into the yogurt mixture until just blended.  Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tin.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly touched.  Allow the muffins to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing them from the tin.

Place the confectioner's sugar in a small bowl.  Stir in the lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until the mixture is drizzling consistency.  Drizzle over cooled muffins, and allow the icing to set before serving.  (NOTE:  I dipped my muffin tops into the drizzle, then turned them upright and placed them on the serving platter.)

Again, please visit Lori's wonderful blog to find out about

Friday Farm Girls at Heart!

Back to life,
Christine

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captured by Christine Anne