do you know the muffin man?

So there were a plethora of leftover frozen fruit after a 90th birthday bash at my aunt's house...and what better way to use up all that fruit than make it all happily baked into a muffin? The motive behind these cakes of deliciousness were, once again, our Californian guests. Little do they know that they will be dining on these for breakfast tomorrow morning. :)

These muffins were super easy, and the only tricky part was the fact that I used frozen berries instead of fresh. The berries had to drain for quite awhile in our handy dandy Ikea sieve, and many a paper towel had to be used to make them relatively dry-ish. I was a bit concerned that I was going to end up with soggy muffins due to the frozen fruit, but they came out absolutely fab. And fabulously moist! Really, any fruit could be used for these muffins...blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. But I must admit that mixed berries seemed to kick them up a notch.

And not only did these muffins come out tasty, but they also came out...

...bella! Or beautiful, if you're not feeling Italian today. :) And hopefully tomorrow morning, our guests will think they're bella, too.


Berry Good Muffins
Altered from "Blueberry Muffins" in The Great Big Cookie Book

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 eggs
4 tbsp. butter, melted
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup mixed berries, fresh (rinsed and patted dry) or frozen (thawed, drained, and patted dry)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin pan tin, or use paper liners.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Beat the eggs until well blended. Stir in the melted butter, milk, and vanilla. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture. With a large spoon, stir until the flour is just moistened, not until smooth.

Add berries to batter, and gently fold with spoon, making sure they are evenly distributed. Spoon batter into the pans, leaving room for the muffins to rise. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool.