Berry Berry Muffins

Do you remember that commercial for Berry Berry Kix back in the 90s, and there was a kid at the end of the commercial who takes a bite of cereal, smiles at the camera shyly, and says, "Berry Berry Good"?  Gotta love the 90s.

I came up with this recipe by playing around with previous muffin recipes that turned out well.  I like this recipe because it calls for ingredients I usually have.

I also like being able to use dried fruit because it's the sort of thing you can stock your pantry with and use whenever you want, rather than having to use fresh berries whose shelf life you have to become a slave to.  There are few things in the world that you can control, but muffin-making time should be controlled by me, not fruit. 

Rant over.

Ingredients (12 muffins):
-1 cup flour
-1 cup old fashioned oats
-1/3 cup sugar
-2 tbsp ground flax seed (or substitute 2 tbsp veg oil)
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 egg
-1 cup plain yogurt
-1 tbsp vegetable oil
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1 cup dried mixed berries

Preheat 400F

1.  In a large bowl, combine flour and oats.

Make sure to use old fashioned oats, not the quick oats kind.

Add sugar, baking power, baking soda, and our fun little ingredient, milled flax seed.

This stuff is great because it is high in fiber and natural oils that allow you to omit (or at least reduce) the amount of butter or oil or even eggs that you use in baked goods. 

Here we go!

2.  Now we want to add our other healthy ingredient: plain yogurt!

Plain yogurt is not the most delicious thing in the world to eat plain, but I love adding it to baked goods as a substitute for butter.  It keeps the muffin nice and moist without adding fat.

Now add the egg, oil, and lemon juice.   

Mix until well incorporated, but make sure you don't overmix. 

There!

3.  When your batter's done, fold in the berries.  I used about a cup of dried mixed berries, which include cranberries, blueberries, and cherries.

There, all ready!

4.  Next, I spooned the mixture evenly into a lined muffin pan using the same spoon from the flax seed.  Washing two different spoons = pointless.  Right? 

Mmm these look delish already!

Bake for 20 minutes.  Perfect chance to read articles or clean your kitchen.

Okay, here they are!

Mmm, so delicious!  Look at how lovely that looks.

Let's peel back one of these.  I know for muffins, you're supposed to wait until they're cool, but I never ever have patience for that sort of thing.  Trying to get a Ph.D. here...don't have time to wait for some berry muffin to cool down.  Oops, yeah, it makes half the muffin stick to the paper.  But whatev.

Oh wow.

The muffin is so moist, soft, delicious, and not too sweet.  I like that it's just the right amount of sweetness...you get that from the little pockets of fruit which have plumped up in the oven.  Delicious!

And the muffin tastes amazing hot or cold. 

Why wait?  Make these now now now!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.