Say good morning with blueberry muffins

Time for a burst of sunshine through the stews and brownies I’ve been posting recently.

These pretty little darlings are a soft, sweet and fluffy way to start the day.

The way fruit is used in these babies is pretty forgiving, so if you have different berries on hand, use those, or if you have bananas rather than peaches, that’ll do too. Grated apples or pears would work fine too. I didn’t have lemons or oranges on hand, but grating some zest into these would have made them really awesome, especially with the blueberries. This is my favourite go-to recipe on Sunday mornings, as it’s quick, pretty foolproof and only uses one bowl. It also works with various fruit combinations, so it’s wonderful any time of year.

Fruity breakfast muffins

Adapted from Donna Hay’s “Simple essentials: fruit”

makes 18 medium small muffins

3/4c (185ml) neutral tasting vegetable oil
1 1/2c caster sugar
1/2 c milk (or 1/4 c cream + 1/4 c water, or use yogurt or sour cream)
3 eggs
2 1/2 c plain flour (you can add some wheatgerm, eg. 2c flour, 1/2c wheatgerm, to make these even healthier)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
optional: 1/3c rolled oats, plus more for sprinkling
optional: raw sugar for sprinkling on top
3/4c mashed banana or stewed peach (I used this)
125g blueberries or other berries (chop strawberries into chunks)
optional: grated zest of one lemon or orange

Preheat oven to 180C (350F), with a rack in the centre. Grease muffin trays if using metal ones.

Whisk the oil, caster sugar, milk, eggs and mashed fruit in a medium large sized bowl until well incorporated. Sift over flour, salt and baking powder, then without mixing in just yet, throw the berries over the flour. Fold the flour and fruit into the wet ingredients until just incorporated – do not overmix. Spoon into greased muffin tins, filling each cup 3/4 full. Sprinkle tops with rolled oats and raw sugar.

Bake 25 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.

It’s the last week of Uni holidays (at Canterbury at least), so whatever you’re up to, I hope you make the most of it!

PS. I know I promised Julia’s omelette, but that will come next, promise! Am actually studying after the bakefest recently.