Skinny Gluten Free Blueberry Corn Muffins

Is it fair to call these gluten free blueberry corn muffins skinny? I mean, they’re still muffins, right? Yes indeed. But they are more virtuous than their regular muffin counterparts, as they’re really very light on sugar (only 1/2 cup of sugar for all 12 muffins, with just a very light sprinkling of coarse sugar on top) and made with about half the butter as you’d normally find in muffins. These are most certainly breakfast muffins, which is exactly what my children wanted to know the minute they walked in the door from school and saw them all piled up under the cake dome on our kitchen counter. That’s where the baked goods that are going to be eaten soon live. And the kids know it! My children are not on a skinny “diet” or anything, of course, but they know that “skinny” foods are going to be low in sugar (much more important than low in fat!) and are therefore more likely to be served to them generously for breakfast.

I prefer to make them with fresh blueberries, if I can, but they’re just as delicious with frozen ones. The main difference between baking with fresh blueberries and baking with them frozen is that the frozen berries (don’t defrost them before adding to the batter!) is that the frozen berries tend to bleed their color into the batter. So you end up with blue-tinted muffins. Not a big problem, of course, as the flavor isn’t affected at all.

These muffins are adapted from my lighter gluten free blueberry muffins, but of course with coarsely ground yellow cornmeal and a slightly difference balance of moisture and other ingredients. These are heartier than the others. And you have a few more options with these, like making them entirely without any berries at all (they’ll be a bit smaller, and bake a tiny bit faster), or with fresh or frozen cranberries in place of blueberries (just cut the cranberries each in half before folding them into the batter). If you make them into cranberry muffins, replace the lemon zest with orange zest, and the lemon juice with an equal amount of freshly squeezed orange juice. So good!

Here’s to a new year/new you! For the record, though, I like the regular you just fine. :)

Looking for more Skinny Gluten Free Recipes? Try these:
Lighter/Skinny Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins
Lighter/Skinny Gluten Free Banana Snack Cake
Lighter/Skinny Gluten Free Lemon Poppyseed Cookies
Lighter No-Butter Pie Crust

Prep time: 10 minutes       Cook time: 22 minutes       Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 cup (140 g) all-purpose gluten free flour (I used my Better Than Cup4Cup flour)

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)

1 cup (132 g) coarsely-ground gluten free yellow cornmeal (I have used everything from Bob’s Red Mill brand to Nuts.com brand, and all work fine)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup (about 200 g) fresh or frozen blueberries (frozen will bleed into the batter, which only affects color, not taste)

4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (114 g) nonfat Greek-style plain yogurt (you can strain regular nonfat plain yogurt to make it Greek-style)

1 egg + 1 egg white (total 90 g, weighed out of shell) at room temperature, beaten

1/3 cup (5 1/3 fluid ounces) lowfat buttermilk, at room temperature

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) freshly-squeezed lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)

Coarse sugar, for sprinkling (I used Sugar in the Raw)

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease or line a standard 12-cup muffin tin, and set it aside.

• In a medium-size bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and whisk to combine well. Transfer 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients to a small bowl, add the blueberries and toss to coat the blueberries in the dry ingredients. Set both bowls aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy (with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment). Add the sugar, yogurt, egg and egg white, and beat until smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and beat until just combined.  Add the buttermilk, lemon zest and lemon juice, and mix to combine. Add the blueberries and reserved dry ingredients in 3 parts, gently folding the blueberries into the batter after each addition until they are evenly distributed throughout. The batter will be thick.

• Divide the batter evenly between the 12 prepared muffin wells, and smooth the tops with wet fingers. Sprinkle the top of each cup of batter lightly with coarse sugar. Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center (and not in a blueberry) comes out with no more than a few moist crumbs attached (about 22 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

• Nutrition Facts via Sparkpeople’s online nutrition calculator, per muffin:

  | Calories 155.3 | Total Fat 4.4 g | Cholesterol 24.9 g | Sodium 137.5 mg | Potassium 79.6 mg | Total Carbohydrate 29.6 g | Dietary Fiber 1.4 g | Sugars 10.6 g | Protein 3.5 g |

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