Recipes Discovered

Apple Pecan Muffin Recipe

Oatmeal Peach Muffin Recipe

I got a request the other day for a healthy dessert. It had to be something that Seth could take with him to work though, so fresh fruit desserts were out of the question. I decided to try muffins. I found a few different recipes that used different ingredients to make them “healthy”, so I figured I would make a couple batches of mini muffins and see which ones turned out the best.

The first recipes I tried was an Apple Pecan Muffin. The recipe used half whole-wheat flour and half all-purpose flour, applesauce, low-fat buttermilk and canola oil to lighten them up. A Golden Delicious apple is diced up and added to the batter (I’ve never had a Golden Delicious apple before, but they are really good!). I did make some substitutions in the recipe. It called for whole wheat pastry flour, which I couldn’t find, so I just used regular whole wheat flour. I also don’t keep buttermilk on hand, so I just added a tablespoon of lemon juice to a cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. Works just as well. Since I was making mini muffins, I only baked them about 10 minutes. The muffins turned out really good. They had a great flavor without being too sweet. I think the pecan and sugar topping really enhanced the muffins. They were a little dense (maybe the pastry flour would have made them lighter?) but they were very moist for only having a little bit of oil in them. So far, so good. >>

The other recipe I tried was an Oatmeal Peach muffin. This recipe used oatmeal instead of the wheat flour, but also called for buttermilk and canola oil. Again, I don’t keep buttermilk around, so I substituted the lemon juice/milk mixture. I also used honey instead of molasses. I didn’t add any nuts to this batch (it said they were optional). I used frozen peaches that I thawed and diced up since peaches aren’t in season yet. These mini muffins also baked for 10 minutes. The muffin was very moist and had a lighter texture than the Apple Pecan. However, these muffins didn’t have as much flavor. I couldn’t taste the peaches at all.

Overall, the Apple Pecan were the more successful of the two muffins. They had a great flavor and were very moist. The Oatmeal Peach had a light texture, but just didn’t have any flavor. I do think making the muffins into mini muffins was a good idea though. Other “healthy” muffins I have made turned out very dry, but the mini muffins stayed moist. I have two other muffin recipes I am going to try later in the week. We will see how they turn out.