Healthy Apple Muffins

04

I love muffins, but truth be told, most of them tend to be calorie bombs. A muffin from Starbucks probably has more calories in it than my entire dinner (not that it doesn’t taste awesome because, let’s be honest, it really does). But who can eat those often? Certainly not me. Ever hear the expression “straight to my thighs?” Swap thighs with gut, and you have my plight. You see, I am not “normal.” If I eat a piece of pizza or god forbid, a white bread sandwich, my jeans will be tight. I am not exaggerating here! This is fact.

So as a result, I have been playing around with mixtures to try to minimize calories/fat but not taste in muffins. Although these are not as sweet or quite as moist as your usual muffin, I still think they are great and they are packed with nutritional goodness. I don’t want to make them sound bad–they are by no means dry. But since they have under 200 calories and are made partially with whole wheat flour, they are a little more dense than a 700 calorie Starbuck’s muffin.

I have also  made these with mashed banana instead of apple. I think the apple ones turn out slightly more moist because of all the moisture you get from grated apples. Both are good, though!

I go back to this recipe often and swap things out all the time. Change out spices for something else, use a different fruit, use buttermilk or yogurt in place of the skim milk, etc. This is a very versatile recipe, so have fun with it! Your gut will thank you.

Healthy Apple  Muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (or granulated, why not?)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans…whatever you prefer)
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
dash or two of nutmeg
dash or two of cloves
1 egg
3/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup grated apples

Preheat oven to 400*

Using a whisk, combine all your dry ingredients in one bowl: whole wheat and AP flour, sugar, baking soda and powder, salt, nuts, spices).

Beat the egg lightly in a separate bowl. Whisk in milk, applesauce, vanilla to the eggs.

Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Fold apples in.

Divide the batter among a greased or paper-lined muffin tin.

Bake for about 18 minutes  or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Thanks to the wonder of calorieking.com I have even figured out the nutritional value for these muffins which is as follows (per muffin):

Calories: 188
Fat: 3.8g
Carbs: 32g
Protein: 6g
Fiber: 3.3g
Sugar: 11g

Healthy Apple Muffins

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