De-lite-ful Blueberry Muffins

Muffins are the one thing that I've really missed since starting Noom. Muffins are one of those things that I'm not satisfied with only one. If I can't have three, I don't want them. And I'm talking normal size muffins here, not those gargantuan things you get in bakeries. So I started looking around for a lite muffin recipe that I could play with.

Most lite muffins that I've made are small, dense, dry, and totally unappealing. I started out with a recipe for 100 Calorie Banana Craisin Muffins from recipes.sparkpeople.com but by the time I got to today's version, it's completely different. So without further adieu, here is the best lite blueberry muffin I've ever had.

De-lite-ful Blueberry Muffins - 89 calories each (yes you read that right)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup packed Swerve brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 medium bananas, mashed: 1 cup
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup egg whites (I used the refrigerated box kind)
1 cup fresh or frozen thawed blueberries

Directions:

Mix the sugar, soda, salt, cinnamon and flour in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine well and remove any sugar lumps.

Mash bananas in small bowl and add applesauce, milk, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until soft peaks.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir quickly just to combine. Fold in egg whites till no white streaks remain. Stir in blueberries.

Fill 12 muffin tins lined with papers. You will have to pile it up in the middle and you will think they are too full but these muffins don't rise a lot so it's fine. Bake 375° for 15-20 minutes or till golden and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. At 15 minutes mine were done so don't overbake these. Remove to cooling rack immediately. Let cool slightly before serving.

Notes: Be sure to use whole wheat pastry flour. If you use regular whole wheat flour they will be more dense. If you don't have any, you can reduce the flour by a tablespoon or two and be sure to sift.

Use very ripe bananas for the sweetness. I ran short 2 tablespoons and filled the rest of the cup with greek yogurt which worked great.

Work quickly in your mixing as overmixing causes muffins to be tough.

You can use regular 1% milk but you have to adjust the calories. I like the nutty taste that almond milk gives these.

If you don't like sugar substitutes, you can replace with real sugar, just add the calories to the total. I don't use sugar substitutes that often but I really like the Swerve brown sugar. It tastes and behaves exactly like real brown sugar and it's naturally sourced from plants.

Blueberry Muffins - The Lighter Version

The one food I really found myself craving since starting on the Noom program was muffins, but I really have never found a lite muffin that tasted good. For the past few weeks I've been on a mission, though, to try to find a recipe for one that would satisfy my muffin-hunger. I found a recipe for 100 calorie Banana Craisin Muffins on SparkRecipes and submitted by a member onelesspound that looked like a good place to start. I heavily adapted it and ended up with this blueberry muffin recipe. They clearly weren't bakery muffins, the 580 calorie kind with a moist, high texture due to a pound of sugar, but they were good, and I found them even better the second day after sitting in a closed up leftover container. They were moist, pleasantly sweet due to the blueberries, and had the delicious, more substantial taste of whole wheat. The adaptations that I made from the original recipe were to substitute almond milk for the  If you make them and change anything that you like better, please comment below so we can all benefit.

I also didn't take step-by-step photos of this recipe yet because I wasn't sure I was going to like it. When I make them again, I'll do the step photos.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins-116 calories per muffin-dairy free and vegan

This recipe makes 12 regular sized muffins

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 medium bananas, mashed, about 1 cup
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup almond milk
1 cup blueberries. If frozen, thaw and drain

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°. Either grease the bottoms of the muffin tin or line with paper.

Mix the flour, flax seed, sugar, soda and salt well with a whisk. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and measure to 1 cup. Add vanilla, applesauce, and almond milk to bananas. Stir well. Add dry ingredients and mix just till combined. Over-mixing will result in dense, tough muffins. Gently fold in blueberries. Divide evenly among 12 muffin tins. If desired, sprinkle tops with a brown sugar substitute like Swerve. Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes or till toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool completely. Store in covered container. These freeze well.

Blueberry Muffins

Saturday mornings on the boat are usually lazy, unless we have a major boat project we're working on which, at the moment, we blessedly do not.  We cover the V-berth hatch with some of that insulated foil sandwich stuff so the sun doesn't wake us up and we sleep in late. We make some iced coffee in the summer, or hot coffee in the winter, and then I poke around lazily making some muffins or coffee cake. It's wonderful to have the boat filled with baking goodness - cinnamon, nutmeg, and warm blueberries...can't you just smell it wafting past your nose? Fortunately they don't take long to make. This recipe is a heavily modified one from The Pioneer Woman which, if you've never visited is worth the time. By the way, if you think you're seeing a lot more organic ingredients in my pictures, you're right. The more research I do on the food allergy issue I mentioned in my post In Search of Real Food a while back, and the more meals I prepare with organic foods and experience the taste difference, the more convinced I am that it's the right way to go. Once we're on the boat it may even be easier to get organic fruits and vegetables because of local fruit markets. We'll see.

Ingredients:
1 cup white flour
1-3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
Heavy pinch of salt
Dash of nutmeg
Dash of cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1 heaping cup of plain yogurt
2 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries


Topping:
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons sliced or chopped almonds
2 tablespoons cold butter
Dash cinnamon

Line muffin tins with paper liners or grease with butter. Mix topping ingredients together in small bowl using fork or small whisk to cut butter into mixture until it looks like small crumbs. Set aside.

Mix together flours, soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar in bowl.

In another bowl mix together oil, egg, yogurt and vanilla.

You need to have everything ready in their separate bowls because once you begin to mix the wet and dry ingredients together  you have to move fairly quickly. good, tender, moist muffins are the result of evenly distributed ingredients mixed quickly.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just till the dry ingredients are incorporated into the wet ingredients. Fold in blueberries. Sorry, no pictures here because I was distracted by my Captain who is learning Spanish and had some questions. Do not overmix - if you overmix the batter your muffins will be dense and tough. Spoon into muffin tins - 24 for small muffins, 18 for medium muffins or 12 for super-huge-better-not-be-on-a-diet muffins. Top with a spoonful of topping mixture. Bake 400° for 20-35 minutes. The time depends on the size muffins and your oven, so set it for 15 minutes and begin to check them until you get a feel for the time you need. Enjoy!