KITCHEN KREATION: Muffins, Muffins, & More Muffins!

I know, I know, right? I am on this insane cupcake/muffin obsession over here.
With my sweet tooth and our efforts to keep slimming down, I think cupcakes are the perfect way to indulge myself. This way, I get one perfect serving and I can still hold myself accountable. I won't be able to keep trimming "just another sliver" off of a cake.

So, Sunday morning, I woke up after this crazy dream where I was running all over KMart and Walmart looking for the brown sugar Splenda because I just had to make these muffins. Needless to say, when I woke up, I headed straight to the kitchen to make up what were literally the muffins of my dreams. LOL

Thought I would try something a little different this morning though. I made up a batch of the basic muffin batter and in a separate bowl, I used my ice cream scoop to scoop out four portions into a separate bowl. Next I mixed in blueberries, carrots, and chocolate chips. Yum! It smells like a bakery in here.


When I first headed into the kitchen this morning, I started whining about not remembering to get a new hand mixer. The last one kicked the bucket after the carrot cake muffins. I had it for probably 10 years or so, but it just couldn't seem to keep up with my new baking frenzy. I have to say, it served me well. I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth out of it. So anyway, I had to shake it off and remember, how did the women back in the day bake things? By hand, of course! So, I got out my handy dandy wisk and my spatula and put in some elbow grease this morning.

I am very happy to say that these muffins came out moist and semi-healthy. I didn't stuff them with the cream cheese frosting and didn't put any frosting on top. I just added the coarse sparkling sugar on top for a little extra sweetness & crunch. They came out really well, although I have to admit that I liked the blueberry muffins the best followed closely by the carrot muffins.
*HANDY DANDY TIP OF THE DAY: Coat your blueberries with flour before mixing them into the batter. It will keep your blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffin. Cool, huh?

Notice the pretty even distribution of blueberries?

Here is the recipe, hope you enjoy.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup blueberries (either fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup finely grated carrots
1/2 cup chocolate chips (your preference, I used 1/4 c. white chips & 1/4 c. milk chocolate)
1 Tbsp flour
Coarse sparkling sugar (optional)
Cooking spray

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line muffin pan with muffin liners. Spray liners with cooking spray.
3. Combine the flours, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
4. In separate bowl whisk the eggs, water, and vegetable oil together until well incorporated.
5. Slowly stir in the wet egg mixture into the dry mixture.
6. Mix well until fully moistened.
7. In small bowl, add blueberries and the tablespoon of flour. (This will keep all of your blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.)
8. Using an ice cream scooper, dole out four servings of the muffin batter.
9. Mix with blueberries.
10. Scoop the four servings into four muffin liners.
11. Scoop four more servings into bowl, add grated carrots and mix well.
12. Scoop the carrot mixture into liners.
13. Lastly, add the chocolate chips into the remaining muffin batter. Stir well and scoop into liners.
14. Sprinkle sparkling sugar over muffin batter (optional)
15. Place in oven for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.
16. Enjoy!

Makes 12 muffins.
Mine ended up making 13 muffins because I didn't measure my carrots out and had one extra carrot muffin.
Enjoy!