Cherry and Almond Muffins

This is a great recipe to utilize those tasty cherries that are in season right now.  I have substituted half the butter and half the oil for non fat Greek yogurt.  I also subbed some of the flour for ground oatmeal.  These couple of tweaks do not effect the overall flavor or texture but they do help to make them a more healthy option for breakfast or a snack.

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup Butter, softened
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 Cup Non-Fat Greek Yogurt
2 Cups Sugar
3 Eggs, Whole
1 Egg Yolk
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Almond Extract
1 1/2 Tbl Baking Powder
2 Cups Flour (you can sub whole wheat flour)
1 2/3 Cup Oatmeal Flour (Grind 2 cups whole oatmeal in your food processor or ninja to a fine powder)

1 Cup Buttermilk
2 Cups Fresh Cherries, pitted (See my "How to Pit Cherries Using a Pen" Blog)
Oatmeal and Chopped Almonds to Garnish

Beat butter, oil, Greek yogurt and sugar together.  Add eggs and yolk one at a time.  Add salt and almond extract.  Mix until creamy, scrap down the edges.

In a small mixing bowl whisk together flour, oatmeal flour and baking powder.

Add 1/3 of the flour mix to the mixer.  On low speed mix until flour is almost fully incorporated.  Add 1/3 of the buttermilk, mix.  Continue to add flour and buttermilk in 1/3's.  Scrap down bowl and mix one final time.

Remove bowl from stand mixer and fold in cherries by hand.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill paper lined muffing tin.  Liners should be 3/4 full of batter. 

Sprinkle the top of batter with whole oats and chopped almonds. 

Bake on middle rack of oven at 350' for approx 20min.  Muffins should feel firm to touch and toothpick should come out clean.  Careful, they don't get very brown so don't over bake.

Once cooled store in airtight container for up to 3 days

Notes:

This recipe makes about 24 muffins.  If you don't want to make all of them at once simply freeze the uncooked batter.  When you want a few muffins scoop frozen batter (like you would ice cream) into muffin liners and bake as usual (yep, go ahead and bake even if batter is still frozen.)  This is a great trick, you can have fresh baked muffins on a whim!

Feel free to sub any kind of berry, nut or extract (Blueberry with Lemon, Raspberry with Chocolate Chips, Orange and Poppy seed, Cranberry (dried) and Pecans)