Maple Butter Brown Sugar Muffins

Snowed In.  Well, not really.  We have just received more snow in the past few days than in living memory. Well, I suppose that is not entirely accurate either.  At any rate, it's a LOT of SNOW.   When you have this much snow, you expend more energy, right?  Energy shovelling the dang blasted driveway, energy plowing through snow drifts walking the dog, energy getting anywhere while walking in 4 inches of slush.

With all this extra energy being consumed, it's important to ensure that a good stock of energy is in store. Energy out requires energy in.  It's as simple as that.  Enter Maple Butter Brown Sugar Muffins.

I made these with maple butter (which is really just maple syrup in a smooth spreadable format) which can easily be substituted for maple syrup.  The brown sugar is added to the flour mixture and not the butter and egg mixture on purpose - it creates little lumps of flour coated sugar which will turn into little brown sugar pockets in the muffin.

Maple Butter Brown Sugar Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup maple butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.

Mix together milk, melted butter, yogurt, egg, vanilla and maple butter in a separate bowl, then add to the flour mixture.

Spoon into paper lined muffin cups and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.  Makes 12 muffins.