Yesterday, we started out our breakfast menu with pancakes. Today, we’re talking muffins.
We love muffins around here. Not only are they great in the morning, but they make good leftovers & snacks too.
Whipping up a batch of muffins – oatmeal cinnamon, blueberry, gingerbread or cherry zucchini, takes about 15 minutes, and then they bake!
I love making muffins in the morning because I can prep the batter, get the muffins into the oven, get ready for work and then enjoy warm muffins.
Are Muffins Healthy for You?
The answer, of course, is “it depends”.
Traditionally, muffins are packed with fat and sugar. A typical blueberry muffin from a bakery (like Starbucks) has 360 calories, 11 grams of fat and 33g of sugar. Wow. That to me is dessert – not a great way to start to the day.
We will only make a breakfast at our house if it’s wholesome. So, our muffins are filled with:
- whole wheat flour,
- natural sweeteners or reduced sugar,
- applesauce in place of lipids, or
- olive oil if a lipid is essential.
In addition, many of our muffins use fruits & veggies… a great way to start the day.
4 Tips for Making Homemade Muffins
(1) Invest in muffin paper liners. Cleaning the muffin tins is my least.favorite.job. I’d rather clean the bathroom. I’ve found that by having paper liners on hand, I’m much more inclined to make muffins!
(2) Use an ice cream scoop to disperse the batter into the muffin cups. This helps insure that all muffins are roughly the same size so they bake at the same rate/
(3) If you have un-filled muffin cups from your pan, fill them with water before sliding your muffin tin into the oven. This helps with baking time too!
(4) Mix up the dry ingredients the night before, then all you need to do in the morning is add the wet ingredients.
Muffin Recipes
Here are our favorite fall muffin recipes. What are you waiting for? Pick one out and try it!
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What’s your favorite muffin recipe? Have you made them from scratch?
Linked to: Kitchen Tip Tuesday
We bake muffins every Saturday morning. Thanks for some healthy recipes! They look delicious. I also hate washing the muffin tin!
ReplyDeleteJust through together the Gingerbread muffins!! Took me 6 min.!! Woohoo!!! Can't wait to try them. Thank you for such delicious recipes!
ReplyDeleteI am immensely enjoyed your series so far and am learning quite a bit. I do have a few questions though, you said:
ReplyDelete"So, our muffins are filled with:
* whole wheat flour,
* natural sweeteners or reduced sugar,
* applesauce in place of lipids, or
* olive oil if a lipid is essential."
Can you sub wheat flour in any recipe? My husband and I have been trying this and things turn out thicker than we are used to, do we need to use less when subbing for regular flour? What do you use when subbing things in place of sugar? When do is the oil essential and can you sub other things or just applesauce.
I really enjoyed when you explained about the baking soda and baking powder and that baking powder did essentially the same thing. Can you explain what other elements in recipes do?
@ Mama Moose -
ReplyDelete1) Yes - you can substitute whole wheat flour in any recipe. We substitute white whole wheat flour at a 1:1 ratio, and do the same thing with whole wheat flour, although sometimes we need to add a bit more liquid to compensate. here's my post on flours: http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2011/10/31-days-stocking-your-pantry-flours.html
2) We use honey and molasses and maple syrup as our primary sugar replacements. here's my post on sugars: http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2011/10/31-days-stocking-your-pantry-sweeteners.html
3) I haven't run into too many recipes, except for cookies & breads, where I haven't been able to substitute applesauce in place of oil. Some folks recommend other pureed veggie substitutions (e.g., prunes) but I've been happy with applesauce.
4) I'll try to do my best to explain what other elements in recipes do. I'm no pro... but I'll share what I can.