Spice Muffins with Applesauce

School started this week and I was hungry for fall. I looked for Spice Muffin recipes and found this one from epicurious. They were really delicious! I only made a few slight modifications and failed to take any pictures at all. These aren't healthy but they sure are a delicious treat!

Ingredients
For muffins:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking spice (we didn't have allspice)
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (I used only 6oz and it was fine)
For topping:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking spice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
1. Mix together applesauce, butter and eggs in a large bowl. Add spices.
2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.
3. Fold flour mixture into the wet ingredients.
4. Spoon batter into greased or lined muffin tins
5. Mix together the topping and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins
6. Bake 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Let cool briefly before serving.
Makes 12 muffins

Peanut butter chocolate chunk banana muffins

This video http://tiphero.com/gf-peanut-butter-banana-muffins/ from Tip Hero has been floating around Facebook for weeks. We had a few overripe bananas so I decided to give it a try.  My recipe is a bit different than the video. It was easy to throw together and they taste great!  153 calories per 1/2 C size muffin.

Ingredients:
3 ripe bananas, roughly sliced
Scant 1C peanut butter (I used creamy skippy)
3 eggs, beaten
2 T vanilla
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 C bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400
2. Line regular muffin tins with liners
3. Throw all ingredients in a blender except chips and blend well. I used an immersion blender and it worked fine
4. Stir in 1/4 C chocolate chips
5.pour 1/2 c batter into each muffin well. Top with remaining chips.
6. Bake 12-15 min until muffins are no longer jiggly ans toothpick comes out clean. These are best eaten cool and they will sing down a bit.

Recipe Makeover: Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Last year, I became completely obsessed with this blood orange chocolate chunk muffin recipe after reading about a new blog in town White on Rice Couple in the Sunset magazine.  Throughout citrus season, I made their recipe and loved it.  The flavors were just so fresh, the texture so fluffy and spot on for my morning and because it had fruit in it, I felt it was a pretty good breakfast.

Well, I think it's pretty common knowledge now that I've lost over 20 lbs since July 2011.  I'm using Weight Watchers--a program I always admitted was not for me because I couldn't drink my milk or have any fruit.  But recently, they changed the program to allow many fruits and vegetables to have no point values at all so that people would still get the nutrients they needed on good foods instead of skipping them altogether.  On a trip to Las Vegas in July, I weighed myself and learned I was 10lbs greater than I had thought.  This had to change I decided and I followed in the footsteps of my friends Kate & Jon and stepped on over to WW and joined up.

Following the program has not been nearly as difficult as I expected.  I really found that I learned how to moderate my eating and limit my consumption of terrible foods that taste wonderful (pizza) to one time per week at the most and increase my consumption of free foods (blackberries/blueberries/raspberries) so that when everyone at the office was snacking, I could too--on little bursts of delicious sweetness to hold me over until dinner.

I also learned that some of my favorite recipes really aren't that healthy.  For instance, my favorite muffin of 2011 turned out to be 7 points! That's a lot of points for one muffin when it's not that filling in the first place (for your comparison, I get 28 points a day, although there are also flex points I can use each week).  The problem is, citrus season is upon us and I WANTED my favorite muffin.  So I decided that I would have my muffin but I would revise the recipe to make it a more reasonable breakfast points value (I aim for 3-5 points for breakfast because breakfast is NOT my favorite meal of the day).

This is the first time I've ever done a recipe makeover. I think the results taste just like the real thing except maybe I cooked them a dash too long.  I will revise the cooking time here so that when you make them you can bake them just right!

1 Muffin = 4 Points+

Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Muffins
*These muffins can be made with any citrus fruit of your choice. This time I used regular oranges because blood oranges are apparently not yet in season. The flavors are still excellent, although a little more orangy than when using the scarlet beauties.

Yield 12 muffins
Ingredients
1 C whole wheat whole grain flour
3/4 C all purpose white flour
1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4t sea salt
grated zest of 3 blood oranges (I used 3 small oranges for the zest)
3oz dark chocolate, cut into small chunks
1/2 C unsweetened applesauce (measure in a liquid measuring cup)
2/3 C fresh blood orange juice (I used the same 3 small oranges AFTER zesting and also juiced 1 large orange as I was short)
1 t vanilla extract
2 eggs

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 and line a 12-cup regular muffin pan with muffin liners or if necessary grease with cooking spray
2. In a large bowl, mix together the first 7 ingredients. Stir in chocolate chunks and combine.
3. In a smaller bowl combine applesauce, orange juice, extract and eggs.  Make sure to beat the eggs to fully combine.
4. Pour liquid mixture into dry and mix with a spoon until just combined being sure to scrape the flour from the bottom and edges of the bowl.
5. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tins into rounded scoops--these muffin cups will be very full and that will make them into rounded muffins in the oven.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean
7. Cool slightly before serving.  When the muffins are completely cooled, store them in a ziploc bag or airtight container. These also freeze well.  If you freeze them you can defrost one the night before on the counter or in the microwave. I think they taste best when warmed because the chocolate gets all melty

What did I change?
1/2 C butter became 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce.  The butter added 24 points to the recipe, the applesauce is worth 0 points
1 C all purpose flour became 1 C whole grain whole wheat flour. This actually only shaved off 1 point from the recipe but I had this whole wheat flour I wanted to use so I did it
6 oz Chocolate became 3 oz chocolate.  I don't remember how this changed the points value but I do know that it was significant.  While dark chocolate is high in antioxidants it is still dessert.

Lemon Yogurt Muffins

Recently I have come to love the flavor of lemon. I always liked the lemon jelly beans and lemon lime soda but if I had to choose between a lemon bar and a brownie, I would always go with the brownie. Now, however, the choice would be difficult. I also love the complexity of lemon and chocolate together--although not all the time, just in certain situations. I won't pass up a scoop of lemon custard and a drizzle of hot fudge but a lemon bar with chocolate topping might be a little strange.

When I came across these Lemon Yogurt Muffins on a blot I was reading, I thought this was perfect. We currently have at least ten lemons and a bunch of leftover yogurt so I didn't even have to shop for this recipe.

I'm a dough taster, and if the batter is good I'm confident the final product will be. I don't want to hear it about the raw eggs, I know, I know but so be it. I tasted this batter after it came together and didn't notice the lemon at all. It was very faint and so it tasted kinda like plain batter. So, I added a dash of almond extract...still nothing. So I added a bit more sugar and zest of one more lemon. Still nothing...but I decided to go with it.

The final product is as bland as the batter. The texture is also a little strange with these muffins--somewhere between angel food cake and crumpets...complete with lots of nooks and crannys, especially on the bottom. I don't think I'll make these again--they were ok with the added honey on them and they'd probably be good with jam and butter but they are not the spurt of lemony freshness I envisioned for a quick grab and go breakfast.

The recipe at Macheesmo.

Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Muffins

In this month's Sunset magazine I read about a couple that bought a house somewhere in So. Cal a few years ago and immediately planted acres and acres of citrus trees of several varieties. Their blog was also featured in the magazine pointing to the recipes they make with their seasonal citrus and other fresh from the farm ingredients (not necessarily their farm). I checked out the blog and loved the pictures, the recipes--this is something I will continue to follow!

After reading through pretty much ever page of the blog (so I had a little free time, sue me), I came across this recipe for Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Muffins. I love the combination of orange and chocolate and I figured blood orange and chocolate would be just as delicious. I knew that blood oranges are currently in season in CA, so I whisked myself over to the farmer's market and got some specifically for these muffins. I bought 6 oranges and they were relatively small, I needed 5 to make this recipe.

These muffins were delicious. It took a little bit of time to make it all because you have to zest and squeeze the oranges, but it is worth it! If you notice in their pictures the muffins look totally normal...however my muffins are blue. Any thoughts about why?