One of my favorite treats during the winter is a warm, freshly baked muffin. As a child, we would often have banana muffins, occasionally with walnut bits or dark chocolate chips. Among my favorite memories is one of dad putting the tray in the oven, then slowly smelling the aroma of the baking muffins as it wafted throughout the house. There is no delight comparable to biting into a toasty and succulent muffin. Some people like cupcakes better—I, for one, care less for them. While a cupcake is exclusively for desserts, a muffin could be eaten almost any time—for breakfast, lunch, or even as a snack. Although we have often enjoyed banana muffins, this time, we opted to change things up a bit, and baked some scrumptious blueberry muffins. The recipe is as follows:

This will make 6 muffins—adjust the recipe as necessary for more or less muffins.

You will need 2 cups of flour. (Any kind will do, but we used oat flour this time.)

Grab ½ teaspoon of salt—it’s crucial for baking.

Of course, you also need 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

½ cup of sweetener (sugar, agave, stevia, honey, molasses, etc.) Personally, I enjoy the earthy flavors that less refined sweeteners like brown sugar or molasses provide.

2 eggs, or an equivalent amount of egg replacer.

¼ cup of oil

¾ cup of sour soy milk—to accomplish this, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar to soy milk. The acid causes the proteins in the soy milk to clump up, creating a better texture for the muffins. Alternatively, use regular milk.

Finally, 1 and ½ cups of fresh or frozen blueberries. Ours were locally sourced from our grandparents’ blueberry bushes.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Get a large bowl to stir the dry ingredients together—the flour, salt, and baking powder. Then add your sweetener, eggs/egg replacer, oil, sour soy milk/regular milk, and the blueberries. Stir these ingredients together until they are just mixed, and fully incorporated. Put a light coating of oil on your muffin tins, scoop the batter in, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Finally, use a fork to test if they are baked through.

Congratulations! You just made some delicious muffins. Treat yourself to one—you deserve it. If after all this, you weren’t convinced that these muffins were delicious, take a moment to read these “rave reviews”.

“The muffin was excellent. It had a great density to it,” said senior Gabe Allegretto, commenting on the unexpected substance of the muffin.

According to senior Michael John Kuzma III, the muffin was “overall good, but needed some warmth to make it more than just average.”

In order to add some ethos to these reviews, here’s a quote from accredited muffin enjoyer, Dr. McLaughlin. He stated that the muffin was “scrumptious, moist, flavorful, but a tad salty.”

Contrary to these muffin apostates, I believe that the muffin is worthy of being called the “prince of foods.” Try it out for yourself sometime—see if you have a taste on par with my own.