GREENer Baking - Recipe Included!

 I love cooking and love trying new recipes, but baking is a skill that for YEARS has eluded me. I live in the south, so knowing how to bake biscuits are essentially required of a woman if she wants to wear the Southern Belle ribbon. After struggling since my teens to find a recipe that I love, my family loves, and can have it's excellence repeated I found my biscuit mecca. Paula Deen's recipe. Why didn't I start there? There is no one more southun (pronounced like a true Belle) that Miss Pauwla. Say it. Out loud. Southun Pauwla. Southern Belle certificate awarded.

 There is no way to make a traditional biscuit recipe healthy. You can go green by swapping out whole wheat flower, but the truth is that my family doesn't go for that. I've tried switching out even a portion of regular flour for whole wheat and they all knew something was up. I have much better success with muffins, and this recipe is one that I just tried this morning. It's really easy to take a recipe like this, tweak a few of the ingredients, and have something much better for you. Enjoy!

Green Blueberry Muffins

2.5 cups unbleached, organic all-purpose flour

0.5 cup organic whole wheat flour

1.2 cups pure cane sugar

1 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup melted pasture butter (you can use oil if you want, but butter is more nourising and will keep you satisfied longer)

2 organic free range eggs (preferably local)

2/3 cup condensed milk (make your own with dry milk and water, skipping all the yucky additives in canned. Plus, you've already ditched your cans anyway, right? 1/3 cup dry milk, 1/2 cup water)

1/3 cup water

1 cup frozen blueberries

Preheat your oven to 400. Start by adding the dry ingredients to a bowl and stirring with a wire whisk to combine. In a large glass measuring cup measure out your milk and water together, then add your eggs, butter, and whisk to combine. Add your wet ingredients into your dry, stirring just until moistened. This gets pretty thick, so don't overmix because we still have to add the blueberries! Now FOLD in the blueberries. Using frozen berries helps not to demolish them, but still be gentle with your batter and berries. 

 At this point you need to put your mix in your muffin pan, but I want to say that a really easy way to go green in your baking is to get rid of the muffin liners. No waste. And they are completely unneccessary! So grease your tin with a little more butter, fill the cups to the top, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. These will be big, hearty, satisfying muffins. Make sure you smear a nice pat of butter over each one while they're still hot. Everyone here loved them. Checkout my Facebook page for the proof.