Yes, ice cream muffins – but hear me out. It all began like this:

My husband, being a frequent traveler on the path of least resistance, subscribes to a blog that teaches readers how to easily cut corners in life. I know, right?! Anyway, every so often he’ll come to me with a recipe from the site that he’s just dying to try out –  and they’re usually pretty terrible; I’m particularly thinking of a microwavable “coffee-cup-brownie” that was worthy of a Pinterest Fail. After a somewhat forced hiatus from the kitchen, he approached me last week with an ice cream muffin recipe that he was confident would change our weekend breakfasts forever. Nope, I said, and shut the idea down before it had time to grow legs. There was no way I was going to serve ice cream for breakfast! That’s just wrong. Or is it? he countered, and went on to plead his case. Now think about it for a second – what goes into ice cream? Eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla. And what goes into muffins? Eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla, and flour. So, potentially, ice cream + flour = muffins. Hmmm, interesting point. So we made the muffins exactly as the recipe called for, and they were, meh – ok. But they had potential. And potential is all I need to tweak a meh-recipe into a mwah!-recipe. So we altered the amount of flour, changed the flavor of ice cream, fiddled with the cooking time, and lowered the oven temperature until we had a pretty awesome ice cream muffin (that surprisingly wasn’t too sweet). And get this, not only are they super simple to make, they’re actually way (WAY!) lower in calories and fat than a Starbucks muffin. Check it out:

Strawberry Ice Cream Muffin (1 muffin):   120 Calories, 2.5g Fat

Starbucks Bountiful Blueberry Muffin (1 muffin):   350 Calories,  12g Fat

Sweet, right? And delicious, but you won’t know that for yourself until you try it out. So get going already!

Strawberry Ice Cream Muffins

Makes 12-14

• 2 pints ice cream, softened* (I like strawberry, but you can use any flavor)
• 3 cups self rising flour (not to be confused with all-purpose flour which won’t work in this recipe at all!)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly mist muffin tins with cooking spray, then wipe away residue with a clean paper towel, or, alternatively, line tins with paper muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, beat ice cream and flour until combined. Using a spoon, drop muffin batter into cups, dividing evenly. Top each muffin with with a sprinkle of Sugar In The Raw or sliced strawberries, or both!

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

*A good way to soften ice cream is by thawing it in the refrigerator overnight.

{ I always make a couple mini-muffins for my little Mini-Muffin }