Protein Rich Recipes: My Favourite Blueberry Muffins

I thought I had the perfect blueberry muffin so I was reluctant to mess with it.  But, other than the cost of the ingredients if the adjusted recipe didn't work out, I figured I really didn't have much to lose.  I've been slowly working through my favourite recipes to substitute some of the flour content with whey protein powder.  There are a few issues with this:

• There are a huge number of whey protein products on the market.  Some are primarily whey protein but some are packaged as recovery products.  Recovery products typically include both protein and carbohydrate.  I have used a whey protein product here, not a recovery product.
• There are flavoured and unflavoured whey proteins.  Typically, I have vanilla protein powder on hand and, so far, that is what I have used whenever I've modified a recipe.
• Some whey protein powders are sweetened and the variety of sweeteners is wide ranging.  Now, this is just a casual observation but it seems to me that the whey protein powders I've picked up at supplement stores seem to have more sweeteners.  The flavour, sweetness and even texture of your baked product may vary accordingly.
• In the interest of clarity, I have used Natural Factors Grass Fed Whey Protein French Vanilla. It is also the one I used most often in my breakfast smoothies. I will try others and will report how they affect various recipes.

My Favourite Blueberry Protein Muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/4 cup vanilla whey protein powder 

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar (I use demarara brown sugar)

2 large eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup full fat high protein Greek yogurt (I was short a bit on plain yogurt so used about 3/4 cup plain yogurt, 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt)

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2  to 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries. Stir 1-2 tablespoons into flozen blueberries to coat lightly to prevent them from sticking together when you stir them into the batter.

Granulated sugar to sprinkle on top - about 1 to 2 tablespoons

(I ended up getting 1 dozen regular  muffins and 1 dozen mini 2-bite muffins.  And a few of my regular sized muffins were almost as much blueberry as muffin.  They were awesome.)

Instructions

1. Preheat to 375F.
2. Combine first seven dry ingredients in larger bowl and mix well until cinnamon is visually evenly distributed.
3. Combine sugar, oil and melted butter and blend well.  Add eggs one at a time and mix until well combined. At yogurt and milk and mix until well combined.
4. Make a well in the middle of the bowl of dry ingredients.  Pour wet ingredient mix into the well and stir until it just starts to come together.  Gently fold the blueberries near the end, when you only have to stir a two or three more times.  
5. Spoon into prepared muffin tin. 
6. Optionally, sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top of the muffins before baking if you want to a little more crunch and a little sparkle on the muffins. 
7. Bake 18-22 minutes for regular size muffings, about 12-14 minutes for mini muffins.   Test the usual way by inserting a toothpick comes out clean.  If you hit a blueberry, try again to get a real test.
8. Let muffins cool in the muffin tin 5 to 10 minutes before removing them to a baking tray.  (Except for the first one that I usually put on a plate and eat it as soon as it's out of the oven.)
9. I filled the muffin cups to pretty close to the top of the muffin papers and this recipe was still too much for a dozen of what I normally get from my muffin pan. I had enough batter to get a dozen mini muffins as well. 
10. Nutrition panel below is based on getting 16 muffins from this recipe (which is how it worked out for me).

 

And then there were none!