Gluten-free, egg-free, fresh blueberry muffins

Now that Darling Daughter is egg-free, it makes baking a little more difficult. We don't want to give up everything, but we also don't want her skin rashes to return so it's EF we go. Along with being gluten free, this means we've got another challenge on our hands. And, as you know dear chefs, I love a challenge.

This morning I wanted to wake up with yummy, fresh blueberry muffins. What I came up with are sweet, moist and light blueberry muffins with no egg in sight. How, you ask? (I know you're asking, go ahead) Simple, I scoured the Internet to find out what I could use for replacements. I have already used flax/water mixture, but wanted something that would be a little more moist. That led me to apple sauce or pureed fruit of some kind. Since I had apple sauce in the fridge, easy fix.

The recipe that follows is a hybrid of The Cake Doctor Bakes Gluten Free and my own tweaks and changes to eliminate the eggs. It does have butter in it, but if you wanted a vegan muffin I'm sure you could use a little oil or vegan margarine in its place.

Blueberry muffins, perfect for Fourth of July!

Gluten-free, Egg-free Blueberry Muffin

1 box Gluten Free Pantry Old Fashioned Cake & Cookie Mix

2 Tbs Ground Flax

5 Tbs warm water

4 Tbs apple sauce (natural, no HFCS or sugar)

1/4 cup raw sugar

1 Tbs GF vanilla extract

3/4 cup grapefruit juice (recipe called for OJ, but I didn't have any. This worked out great)

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice

1 stick butter, melted

1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Mix flax with hot water and mix well. Place in fridge to cool.

3. Reserve 1 Tbs of the cake mix in a small bowl.

4. Add remaining cake mix, apple sauce, sugar, vanilla, grapefruit juice, lemon juice and butter. Mix well. I used a fork, no need to pull out a mixer for this.

5. Add flax mixture to muffin mix after stirring well. You may need to add a little more water to make sure it's at egg consistency before adding. Mix this into the muffin batter well.

6.  Toss blueberries with the reserved cake mix and then fold into muffin mix gently.

7. Line muffin tins with liners and scoop out mix into cups. Fill about 3/4 full. You'll get about 17-20 muffins, depending on the size of the blueberries you use.

8. Optional: Sprinkle top of muffins with a pinch of raw sugar to get a crispy top.

9. Bake for 20-24 minutes until golden brown.

10. Let cool for a few minutes, then remove from pan and complete cooling. I dare you to let them cool all the way before eating them!

Enjoy!