sampleroom

Project: Blueberry Muffins 

It's that time of year again...the blueberries are in season and what better thing to wake up to in the morning than some freshly baked blueberry muffins.  In my endeavor to find the perfect gf muffins, I decided to check out 4 of my favorite go-tos recipe sites/bakers: Sarabakesgfree.com, Erin McKenna of Babycakes, Glutenfreegobsmacked.com, and glutenfreegirl.com.  

First stop Sarabakesgf.  I love Sara's recipes and have had much success with them in the past (a few of my favorites being her lemon cookies, berry crisp, and chocolate chip cupcakes - yum!), however Sara's blueberry muffin recipe didn't do it for me.  I found the muffins to take 10 minutes longer to bake than directed in the recipe, and the consistency of the muffins was very moist - too moist for muffins (although cooked through) even after the extended baking time. The flavor was fine, but I have a hard time eating wet blueberry muffins. Don't get me wrong, I like my muffins to have a level of moistness, but I also want it to have a solid and more cake-like consistency.  

Moving on I tried one of my other go-tos - Erin McKenna of Babycakes.  I was given Erin's cookbook by a very good friend when I was first diagnosed with Celiac and used it as my bible for satisfying my sweet tooth after the first few months of my diagnosis.  As you can imagine I had high hopes for Erin's blueberry muffins.  After checking on them 15 minutes into their cook time, the muffins had really darkened in color and were not cooked all the way through.  I moved them to a lower rack in my oven and eagerly awaited for them to finish cooking as I was determined not to be detoured by their color.  Unfortunately for me I found these muffins to be very dry - completely the opposite of Sara's muffins.  Plus the flavor was a bit too bland for a blueberry muffin.  Bummer.

On to Gobsmacked which claims to have the "Best Ever GF Blueberry Muffins".  These muffins used oat flour and 7-up, which I thought was an interesting twist.  I really loved these muffins and would highly recommend them. The flavor and the texture were right on and made me a fan instantly.  These are exactly what you would expect a home cooked blueberry muffin to taste like and even reminded me a little of (dare I say) the Pillsbury box mix (only with fresh blueberries) that I really enjoyed in the past (yes I admit it, I used to be a big box mix fan).  

However as much as I liked Gobsmacked's recipe I decided to try one last recipe and came across my ultimate favorite Blueberry muffin recipe by Gluten-Free-Girl and the Chef.  I knew that I had a hit right away as I pulled these muffins from the oven and their scent enveloped me. It was so hard to wait for these babies to cool before I popped one into my mouth (I frequently scald my mouth with my impatience in the kitchen).  The muffins had the perfect consistency and every bite oozed with the deliciousness of freshly baked blueberries.  I felt as if I had just walked out of a gourmet bakeshop, except these were made in MY kitchen.  Hence in my opinion, this is THE perfect gf blueberry muffin recipe, the kind that you dream about finding  first thing in the morning awaiting for you at the breakfast table.   Success.