The time has come when I can now return to normal eating habits. Yes, the three week “cleanse” has come to an end! Ideally, one would take the lessons of the cleanse – eat clean, healthy food; prepare food yourself; leave the processed junk behind – with oneself forever and ever. I… might not. I will try, for sure. In fact, I’ve now done away with all artificial sugar (I know, don’t hate), and I’ve even made friends with a long-reviled appliance, the blender. But some things are definitely coming back in force. Natural sweeteners, yes. Hellooo, dairy. And finally, welcome back, gluten.

Honestly, I’ve never understood folks who go gluten-free but aren’t actually Celiac. Sure, I can get behind eating more fiber-rich whole grains just like the next gal, but what is so bad about whole wheat? If you are not allergic, it can be just as healthy (or more so) than rice flour or some of the other, equally highly-refined gluten-free options.

So what did I do to mark my triumphant return to the world of gluten? I had a muffin.

Not just any muffin. A Blue Sky Bakery muffin.

Blue Sky Bakery is a Park Slope institution known for their killer muffins. The combinations are crazy and crazy-delicious. Some of the variants you might come across are: pumpkin apple walnut, zucchini raspberry chocolate chip, carrot cream cheese cranberry. Really, there is no limit to the muffin imagination here. It’s my special happy place.

The cream cheese muffins are my favorite, but unfortunately for me (or fortunately, given that I was fresh off a dairy-free diet), there were none to be had that day. Instead, I tried to be “healthy” and opted for the blueberry strawberry bran muffin.

This was a healthy choice in a purely nominal sense. Blue Sky bran muffins are the most buttery, moist bran muffins you will ever eat. The top is crackly thanks to a dose of granulated sugar:

But the real gem is inside:

Unlike many other muffins, the BSB representatives do not have fruit disbursed throughout. Instead, the fresh fruit tends to descend and congregate near the bottom of the muffin, like a stuffed quick bread (if such a thing ever existed). I go both ways on this preparation, but sometimes it can be awfully nice to have a little pocket of fruity goodness.

Blue Sky keeps some peculiar hours; they close at 2:00 PM every day, which can make it hard to linger over a late morning muffin on the weekend. But if you look hard, you can find their muffins hiding all over the city. So far, I’ve seen them at Greene Grape Provisions in Fort Greene and at Birch Coffee in the Flatiron District. If anyone has any additions on where to scout these out, please let me know in the comments! You never know when a muffin craving will hit.

Blue Sky Bakery (no website)
53 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (map)