Lemon Muffins with White Chocolate Chips

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day or less.

Today is Secret Recipe Club reveal day. Can I get a whoot whoot. Thanks to Amanda and Amanda's Cookin' for cooking up such a fun idea. (Click here if you're interested in signing up)

This month I got Debbi Does Dinner Healthy and Low Calorie. And truly Debbi's blog is full of healthy ideas. I printed off several of her recipes and have already tried more than one. Which did make picking which one I used for today a little tricky.

I chose the Lemon Muffins because a) I love lemon and b) I had a decent picture.

Debbi's recipe actually called for all white flour. But I had some white whole wheat that I've never used before and have been wanting to audition. This recipe seemed like the perfect opportunity (no one wants to eat a brown lemon muffin).

One thing I loved about these muffins was how very much you could play with them. I added white chocolate chips. Here are some other ideas:

-Add dried cranberries or macadamia nuts or both for a lemon cranberry macadamia muffin. Yum.
-Top or fill with raspberry or blackberry jam.
-Create a lemon glaze to pour over them (a little lemon juice and about 1 C of powdered sugar)
-Use lemon extract instead of vanilla extract for a more lemony punch.
-Try orange instead of lemon.
-Roll them while warm in sugar as Debbi does.

Lemon Muffins with White Chocolate Chips
adapted from Debbi Does Dinner Healthy and Low Calorie
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 12 minutes
makes 12 large muffins
Cost: $1.42/ per muffin: about .12 cents, a little more with chocolate chips
(lemon: .30, milk: .10, flour: .10, whole wheat flour: .18, sugar: .09, butter: .30, egg: .10, yogurt: .25)

1/4 C lemon juice (I used fresh squeezed, but you could probably get away with bottled)
3/4 C milk
2 C all-purpose flour (I used 1 C all purpose and 1 C white whole wheat)
1/2 C sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 C vanilla yogurt (I used plain and didn't miss the vanilla-ness; you could probably use lemon to very good effect)
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2-1 C white chocolate chips
Debbi rolls them in 2 Tbsp melted butter and then sugar when they're warm, but I skipped this since I took the lazy road and added white chocolate chips.

Heat oven to 400. Prepare muffin pan.

In small bowl combine lemon juice and milk and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

To milk/lemon juice, add butter, egg, yogurt, lemon zest and vanilla (don't worry if it's clumpy or curdled looking)

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just until combined. When there are still a few wisps of flour left, throw in the white chocolate chips if using.

Spoon batter into muffin pan. Bake about 12 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Debbi likes hers warm, but I preferred mine cooled. I thought it brought out the lemon more. I'm weird like that with muffins.

PRINTABLE RECIPE