Vegan Ice Cream Blueberry Muffins

I just want to start by saying that Pinterest is amazing, and I would run out of things to cook without it. Pinterest and Thug Kitchen are my staple cookbooks. However, I actually found this recipe on Twitter from BuzzFeed Food. The original recipe is by Christine Byrne I believe, and thankfully it was pretty simple to make it vegan. I just had to swap out dairy ice cream for non-dairy and voila!

The muffins themselves are delicious without being overly sweet so I'm sure you could use the muffin batter as a base for several different flavors of muffins, but Husband is suddenly on a blueberry kick so I thought I'd humor him. That was a bad idea. I didn't even think to taste a blueberry before I threw them all in there, and mine were quite sour unfortunately. But one thing I absolutely loved about this is the ice cream made the batter a little more on the sticky side which prevented the blueberries from all sinking to the bottom.

I used Luna and Larry's Organic Coconut Bliss Vanilla Island ice cream. Why? Because it was new at the store so I figured it must be good. I honestly still haven't even tasted the ice cream. I just melted it into these muffins and called it a day. At least this lack of a taste test didn't end terribly like with the blueberries, and I have a second pint in my freezer waiting for me.

I have no idea how Christine fit an entire pint of blueberries into the batter. Mine got pretty well full with just 6 ounces. And with these muffins only requiring four ingredients, getting the balance right seemed pretty important (in hindsight I should have added some sugar to help cancel out the sour blueberries, but generally you wouldn't need that fifth ingredient).

I took the liberty of putting the muffins in my cupcake liners because I had them and wanted to use them finally so we add a very spring-themed breakfast with the pastel pink, green, and yellow. Since the blueberry juice stained my fingers, I was pretty grateful for that little barrier.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 pint vanilla ice cream
1 6-oz container of blueberries
Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 375° F and melt your ice cream in the microwave (or you could leave it on your counter for a few hours or the fridge for a day).
2. Add the flour and baking powder to a medium-sized mixing bowl and stir/whisk until evenly distributed.
3. Add the melted ice cream and stir. You will end up with a shiny, smooth batter.
4. Stir in the blueberries.
5. Prepare your muffin tin with either cooking spray or cupcake liners.
6. Evenly distribute the batter to all 12 slots, and make sure there's a blueberry in each one.
7. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the muffins are slightly golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean. The blueberries will be leaking juice so poke with care.
8. Allow them to cool before eating. The blueberry juice is incredibly hot and will burn your mouth.

Just warning you all, I am not very creative. I have never once managed to create a new recipe that actually tasted good, but I can tweak existing ones! So if anyone has any old favorites and wants to give me a challenge, go ahead and comment those recipes! We'll have more regular food posts if this is something the majority enjoys.