blueberry bonanza

Welcome to the my very first post! While I'm very excited about joining the blogosphere, I'm even more excited about all the baking I've been doing today! I took my girls blueberry picking yesterday, and we came home with 5 pounds of blueberry goodness.

After eating til we turned blue, giving some away, and making blueberry freezer jam I still had a ton of berries left. I pulled out my handy homemade vegan cookbook (recipes I collect from the internets) and found two awesome recipes.


Here's the first recipe, for Vegan Blueberry Muffins. I found the recipe on recipezaar, but it was credited to a 2005 edition of Vegetarian Times. So, props and credit to both!

1/4 cup vegan margarine
1 cup sugar (I used organic cane sugar)

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup soymilk
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 cups flour (I used 1c unbleached all-purpose and 1c whole wheat flour)

2 cups fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease or line muffin tins
2. Cream margarine and sugar in a large bowl
3. Add remaining wet ingredients and mix until combined
4. Add dry ingredients and mix in with a wooden spoon
5. Toss blueberries in a zippered bag with a little flour - this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin
6. Gently fold in blueberries
7. Spoon into muffin tins, about 3/4 full
8. Bake 30-35 minutes, until tops are firm
9. Remove to racks to cool

Yields 1 to 1 1/2 dozen delicious muffins!

This next recipe is for zucchini bread from Hell Yeah It's Vegan! I modified this one (and by "modified" I mean "added blueberries") to create Zucchini-Blueberry Bread! So moist and flavorful, and the blueberries add a gooey dimension. Yum!

2 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg

2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp warm water mixed with 6 Tbsp flax seed (this is used in a lot of recipes as an egg substitute)
1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (I used a zucchini from my mom's garden that was as big as my forearm)

1 cup fresh blueberries (or more, depending on how blueberry-y you want it)

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 loaf pans
2. Mix dry ingredients
3. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, applesauce, oil, flax-water mixture, and vanilla
4. Stir in zucchini
5. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir with a wooden spoon until combined
6. Toss blueberries in a zippered bag with a little flour to prevent sinking
7. Gently fold in blueberries
8. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans
9. Bake 45-55 minutes, until a knife inserted into loaf comes out clean
10. Cool in pans until able to handle, then transfer to wire racks to cool

Yields 2 yummy loaves - one for you and one to share!

Thanks so much for reading! I'm excited to share these recipes with you - there are many more to come. Stay tuned...