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
Skinny Gluten Free Blueberry Corn 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 (2 2/3 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)
Instructions
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 |
Chasity S. says
I just made these and cannot stop eating them!! I made them as mini muffins. I used Pamela’s Gluten Free all purpose flour blend and added 1/4 tsp xantham gum even though the blend already contained guar gum just to increase the tenderness a little more. Also used Bob’s Mill corn FLOUR not meal. It is finer and made a nice soft, delicate texture. It was all I had in the pantry but it worked beautifully. My fresh blueberries were an exceptionally good batch so that contributed to the deliciousness, surely. Will be making again since my son and I will kill this batch by morning ;)
P.S. Sorry for the duplicate post. Tried to delete but it refuses to go away :)
Chasity S. says
Just an update for ya folks. These little yumsies have a decent shelf life. Made them 4 days ago, stored them under cling film on the counter and they are still yummy and moist. A couple seconds in the microwave and they’re good as the day I baked them :) Always nice to have something that keeps well – makes the effort all the more satisfying!
Chasity S. says
I just made these and cannot stop eating them!! I made them as mini muffins. I used Pamela’s all purpose flour blend and added 1/4 tsp xantham gum even though the blend already contained guar gum just to increase the tenderness a little more. Also used Bob’s Mill corn FLOUR not meal. It is finer and made a nice soft, delicate texture. It was all I had in the pantry but it worked beautifully. My fresh blueberries were an exceptionally good batch so that contributed to the deliciousness, surely. Will be making again since my son and I will kill this batch by morning :)
Jasmine says
Hi Nicole! I love your site, and am always trying your recipes. Is there a food substitute for buttermilk if I don’t have any on hand? Thanks!
jasmine says
I meant to say a “good” substitute. :)
Nicole Hunn says
Nothing will truly substitute for real buttermilk, Jasmine, in thickness and depth of flavor, so I buy it regularly and always have it on hand. But in case you get caught out, try buying Saco dry buttermilk blend, which you can mix to make a pretty good buttermilk substitute. Many will tell you to “sour” any sort of milk with an acid like vinegar, but I don’t find that it works effectively.
Karen says
Hi Nikki and Happy New Year! I just place my pre-order for the new book. The cover looks terrific. I can hardly wait to receive and get inside! Congratulations!
Bella says
Love the site redesign Nicole! Looks awesome!
Lucy says
The new look, looks great!
I haven’t made muffins in awhile, these look so good, I’ll have to find me some blueberries :)
youngbaker2002 says
HI NICOLE, i came on this morning to look for a recipe and i LOVE the new look. you did a great job. i L-O-V-E the request a recipe form . that was a great idea!!!
Nicole Hunn says
Thanks, youngbaker! I’ve been looking forward to having that recipe request form for a long time. I love reader requests! They really help keep things fresh, you know?
Jennifer S. says
LOVE THE NEW SITE!!! :) Congrats!
Nicole Hunn says
Thanks, Jennifer! I’m so so glad you like it. Very exciting!!
Luciana Gonzalez says
Hello Nicole! I’m Luciana From Paraguay! I’ ve been following you since two month ago, and I love your Ideas and recipes. I’m going to buy your book tonight, the Kindle Version, thak you for your work and share all. As you say, my friends are jealous of my gluten free food :)
Nicole Hunn says
Welcome, Luciana! That’s perfect that your friends are jealous. That means you’re doing everything just right. :)
kittywitty says
Nicole, your blog’s new look is fantastic! I love the recipe index! I can see why you are proud of it! :) Pictures are so important on a blog, so I love that every recipe link has a picture. And having the recipe request form right here is a great feature, too! Oh, and I like the look of the recipe on the print page. Congrats!
Nicole Hunn says
Thanks so much, kitty! I so agree that photos are so important. Whenever I visit a blog that just lists recipe titles without photos in an index, I just don’t click. So glad you like the request form and the new print format, too. You can toggle on the photo to print with the recipe, if you like, too (in case you hadn’t noticed!).
Mare Masterson says
Love love love the new look of the blog!
Nicole Hunn says
Thanks, Mare! Hope you get a chance to have a look around. The recipe index is a special point of pride. :)
Mare Masterson says
Of course I looked around! Awesome! You should be extremely proud!
youngbaker2002 says
hi nicole, i have finely ground corn flour. will that work too?
Nicole Hunn says
You could try measuring it by weight (it will be much more compact, so a volume replacement definitely won’t do), but I’m honestly not sure how it would turn out!
Michelle says
Oh, I love that light banana snack cake, too! I had forgotten all about it! These look so good! I have the blueberries and lemon, but I also have a bag of cranberries in the freezer, and some oranges in the garage. Decisions, decisions… maybe I’ll make both. Thanks so much for this!
Nicole Hunn says
This one’s for you, Michelle! :)
Michelle says
I made them this morning with fresh cranberries and orange, and they are SO good! Very light texture. Thanks so much! I love the new site. It’s so pretty and easy to navigate.
Elle 1 says
I’m new to your site. I <3 it! I'm allergic to Corn. Is there a substitute for the cornmeal? Oh how delightful these look.
Michelle says
She has a regular light blueberry muffin recipe she links to in the recipe above. I would make those. Or one of the other muffin recipes (use the search function) or any of the other light recipes she mentions above. These are specifically corn muffins, so I think they would not really work without the corn.
Nicole Hunn says
Perfectly well said, Michelle!
Shari says
Can’t wait to try these <3
Jennifer S. says
These look awesome. I’m finally over my fat phobia but I still love recipes like this. I wonder what I could do with dried blueberries? I bought some and one kid likes them and the other one was like, “I don’t like those weird raisins.” Dude, they were not raisins… lol. I’m going to try it out and see what happens.
Nicole Hunn says
I love using dried blueberries in granola, Jennifer! They’re my granola-add-in dried fruit of choice. :)
LOL about the “weird raisins,” by the way. For real.
Michelle says
How about using the dried blueberries in oatmeal cookies? Or in any scone that calls for dried fruit?
Mare Masterson says
Beautiful! I cannot wait to make this one! If I make without berries, do I still zest and use juice?
Nicole Hunn says
Good question, Mare! You can skip the lemon zest (up to you, though!) but if you skip the juice, add two more tablespoons of lowfat buttermilk to make up for the extra liquid.
Anneke says
You know we are big muffin fans around here! Easiest breakfast ever, and the heartier and healthier the better, except no bran; I’m pretty sure the teenagers would say no to bran! I’ll get Linnea baking these this weekend.
Nicole Hunn says
Really, Anneke? You really think they’d say “no” to bran? I so wish I could test that hypothesis with these bran muffins! I wonder if you’d have to rename them, or if the word “bran” would even ring a bell. ;)
Michelle says
I have been meaning to make that recipe forever, but too many of your other good recipes keep crowding in line!