Easy breakfast recipes: Scratch

Easy Healthy Muffin Recipe

Prep Time: 10 minutes

\"breakfast Recipes\"

Bake Time: 20 to 30 minutes

One Simple Recipe for Making Healthy Muffins From Scratch You Can Modify Lots of Ways

Yield: 8-12 muffins

This basic easy healthy muffin recipe can be varied in lots of ways. You can leave them plain, add in a cup or so of your favorite fruit and adjust the amount of sugar to suit your tastes. If you prefer larger muffins, distribute the batter among 8 of the muffin cups and pour 1/4 cup water into the empty cups to prevent them from buckling.

These muffins call for a minimal amount of fat - just 3 tablespoons for the entire batch. You can replace all the fat with a fruit puree such as applesauce, if you prefer, but that makes them too rubbery for my tastes.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole grain pastry flour

1/4 cup sugar, or to taste

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

3 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter

1 cup milk, plus more if needed

optional additions below

Recipe Instructions

Position an oven rack in the middle of the oven and heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a standard 12-cup (2-1/2-inch) muffin pan or line the cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk tougher the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the egg, vegetable oil, milk and any optional ingredients (such as 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries).

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined and moistened. (The batter should still be lumpy and thick, but moist. If the batter seems too dry add a little more milk.)

Distribute the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 minutes (30 minutes for larger muffins).

Remove from the oven and let the muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them out of the pan and onto a wire rack to cool completely. Or enjoy warm.

9 Easy Healthy Muffin Variations

Apple Muffins: Stir in one medium peeled and chopped apple with the milk and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon with the flour. Substitute packed brown sugar for the granulated sugar.

Banana-Nut Muffins: Decrease milk to 1/4 cup, stir in 1 cup mashed bananas (2 to 3 medium) and 1/3 cup chopped nuts with the milk. Substitute packed brown sugar for the sugar.

Blueberry Muffins: Stir in 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries.

Chocolate Chip Muffins: Stir in 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips.

Cranberry Muffins: Stir in 1 cup chopped cranberries and 1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel with the milk. Sprinkle the tops with sugar before baking.

Oatmeal Muffins: Decrease flour to 1 cup and stir in 1 cup quick-cooking oats, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon with the flour.

Raspberry Muffins: Stir in 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries and 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest.

Spice Muffins: Stir in 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger and a pinch of ground cloves and ground nutmeg with the flour.

Zucchini Muffins: Stir in 1 cup grated zucchini (squeezed dry to remove excess moisture) and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts with the milk.

One Simple Recipe for Making Healthy Muffins From Scratch You Can Modify Lots of Ways

Martha is a healthy weight loss coach, cooking coach and cookie lover, who loves to share ways to make cooking and eating simple, easy and delicious and help you stop dieting and instead discover the pleasure of happy healthy balanced eating, cooking and living. Her websites include http://www.simple-nourished-living.com and http://www.greateasyhealthyrecipes.com.

The recipe below for baking powder biscuits produces a tender, flaky biscuit. Just don't work the dough too much, or they will be tough.

MY BISCUIT MAKING SECRETS:

\"Easy Breakfast Recipes\"

You can make the biscuits twice as big as usual so you can make breakfast sandwiches. Just add scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese. You may also make them with vegetable oil and it makes them more flaky. When you use shortening or butter, it makes them more fluffy. I usually add 1/2 teaspoon more of baking powder when I am making big ones. It helps to keep them from being so heavy.
If you're new to biscuits, remember - any time you make biscuits (or scones or anything else that uses baking powder or soda to rise) you want to gently mix the dough JUST until the ingredients are all mixed -- don't overwork it or knead it. The more you handle your dough the more the gluten develops and the tougher your biscuits (or pie crust, etc.) will be.

Simple Recipe For Homemade Biscuits From Scratch

BAKING POWDER BISCUIT RECIPE

2 cups flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBS white sugar
1/2 cup butter, cold
1-1/4 cups milk (whole milk is best)

PREHEAT the oven to 450 degrees and lightly spray a cooking sheet.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or a knife until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk a little at a time, barely stirring after each addition. (Frequent stirring makes these biscuits or any biscuit tough.)

Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

These are delicious warm with butter, homemade jam or honey. I created this recipe when I lived in Tennessee, and this is certainly a keeper.

BUTTERMILK BISCUIT RECIPE

My favorite and best recipe for buttermilk biscuits is below. Buttery and tender, these biscuits will melt in your mouth. The key to perfect biscuits is the dough must be handled very little.

Make sure all of your ingredients are very cold; the food processor works the best for this. You may freeze the rounds on a cookie sheet for up to 1 month - just put this in the oven frozen at 450 degrees and bake for 20 minutes. Another one of my "made from scratch" homemade biscuit recipes.

2 cups unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 TBS baking powder (without aluminum)
1 tsp kosher or sea salt
6 TBS unsalted butter, very cold
3/4 cup buttermilk*, very cold

PREHEAT oven to 450 degrees; you will need a cookie sheet for this recipe.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles coarse meal. (If you are using a food processor, you will just need to pulse a few times)

Add the buttermilk JUST UNTIL IT'S COMBINED. (Important) If it is a little too dry, add more buttermilk. Turn the dough onto a floured counter top. GENTLY PAT until the dough is 1/2" thick. (NO ROLLING PIN) Use a round cutter or a glass to form the biscuits.

Place on a cookie sheet. (If you like soft biscuits - have the biscuits touching; if you like crusty sides - place them about 1" apart. They will not be as high if you do the latter.) Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the biscuits are a beautiful LIGHT golden brown; do not over bake.

*BUTTERMILK

1 cup of milk
1 TBS vinegar or lemon juice

Place the vinegar or lemon juice in a (one cup) measuring cup and then fill with milk. Let it sit for 5 minutes and it's ready to go.

Part of the secret of my great sausage gravy recipe is the fat. If you are watching your weight and purchased the lean good for you kind of pork sausage; it just won't make good sausage gravy. This is also called "sawmill gravy."

This is a "fool proof"recipe, and when it is poured over my warm homemade buttermilk biscuits; it's a southern breakfast nirvana! Nothing is more comforting to me than scrambled eggs with biscuits and gravy. I could eat this anytime of the day; it's not just for breakfast at my house.

Here are some of my gravy "secrets," so every batch is perfect...

Use mostly equal parts of flour to fat.
Always add salt right away when making gravy; measure it right into the fat in the pan before whisking with the flour. Add pepper after the gravy is done because it burns easily and will ruin the gravy.
Stir, stir stir! (don't forget to stir!) I use a whisk and use it constantly throughout the gravy making process.
Last (but not least), cook the gravy on a low temperature.

SAUSAGE GRAVY RECIPE

1 lb pork sausage (your favorite flavor), or breakfast links
3 TBS homemade unsalted butter
1/2 cup flour
3 cups milk
1 cup evaporated milk
1/4 tsp homemade garlic powder
1/4 tsp homemade onion powder
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

On medium heat and in a heavy skillet, melt the butter and cook the sausage until it's no longer pink in the center; drain most of the fat and return to the skillet.

In a small bowl, whisk the milk, evaporated milk and flour together; then add to the cooked sausage directly in the pan. Stir and cook until thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

NOTE:
For something different, you can fry 1 pound of bacon instead of the sausage. Crumble the bacon when it is cooked. It makes yummy homemade bacon gravy!

Simple Recipe For Homemade Biscuits From Scratch

Easy Breakfast Recipes at http://www.misshomemade.com/easybreakfastrecipes.html

Raschell Celleste
http://www.misshomemade.com