Blueberry Avocado Muffins

I'm over halfway through my spring stay-cation. And while, I'm disappointed it wasn't safe to go to Aquiles and sad I didn't get to see my kids in La Union, it's been nice. (Although I now have a really big tent for no reason, and I refuse to take it back…because that would involve going inside WalMart… So, anyone up for a camping trip?)

I've gotten to sleep at night. Like go to bed by 10 or 11 and sleep until 7ish. Actually get things done during the day. I have missed that life. I've gotten to hangout with lots of different friends. I got caught up on TV & Netflix…and started into some new shows… I'm going to FINALLY finish a project that I started forever ago. I've made dinner a couple times (nothing epic…last night was literally, "there is all this stuff I need to use, let's make something out of it" night). 

But I needed to share my muffins from this morning. Totally delicious. Like seriously. And pretty healthy as far as muffins go. The original recipe is from Gimme Some Oven via Pinterest. But I changed it up a bit. I took out 1 cup of AP flour & replaced it with WW (you could replace the flour totally with a GF mix…more power to you). I took out all the processed sugar (3/4 cup) & replaced it with 2 TBSP raw honey. I added a little extra cinnamon. Between using WW flour & the extra cinnamon, my muffins turned out not looking so green, which I think is kind of nice. They look more normal.

Blueberry Avocado Muffins

For the muffins:

1 cup WW flour

1 cup AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 ripe avocado, seeded & peeled

2 TBSP raw honey

1 tsp vanilla 

1 egg

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

Streusel topping:

2 TBSP melted butter, slightly cooled

2 TBSP AP flour

1/4 cup raw sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 375*F and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon.
• In your KitchenAid stand mixer bowl, add the avocado and beat until relatively smooth. Add the egg & beat until completely combined. Add the honey, vanilla & yogurt, beating until just combined. Add half of the flour mixture, beating until just combined. Then repeat with the other half. Gently fold in the blueberries by hand. The batter will be very thick & sticky. No worries. 
• Spoon the batter (or I prefer to use a cookie scoop) into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle with streusel topping (optional). Bake for 25-ish minutes or until done. Just keep an eye on them!

Enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I'm SO excited that I'm feeling better after getting kicked by the flu. It was bad. Like, I had to force myself to drink coffee so I wouldn't also have a caffeine headache. And I didn't workout for three days and did not care. Bad. But, I was finally able to drag myself into the chiropractor, which made a huge difference. Shout out to Family Tree Chiropractic. And I started taking apple cider vinegar, which strangely seems to be helping. 

My work week began on Wednesday night, so I stayed up Tuesday night. I got in a couple X3 workouts, did a little laundry and cleaning, and whipped up these muffins. Somehow we ended up with a million apples. And I'm VERY picky when it comes to eating apples raw. They have to have the perfect texture and crunch. Of course, the apples we have are ones I don't like. So I made muffins. And you can probably expect several other apple-related recipes in the near future.

While they're not super pretty, these apple cinnamon muffins are super yummy! Also pretty healthy. I snagged the recipe from Butter Baking via Pinterest. It calls for plain yogurt, but oddly enough I only had Stonyfield Fat Free French Vanilla. It worked well! I would, of course, recommend plain Greek yogurt. Keep in mind that the texture & the way the muffins bake may vary by which yogurt you choose. You could also add about 1/4 cup of raisins, if you're into that. 

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup pain yogurt

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 1/2 TBSP brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced

1/4 cup raisins (optional)

• Preheat the oven to 350*F and prepare a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick spray or use the little muffin/cupcake liners…I also recommend spraying those too so they don't stick. 
• In a medium bowl, stir together the oats and yogurt; set aside.
• In a large bowl, cream the butter & sugar. Beat in the egg. Stir in the applesauce. Add the oat & yogurt mixture; stir to combine. Stir in the flours, cinnamon, powder, soda, and salt until just incorporated. Do not over mix! Mix the apples and raisins through gently. 
• Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups.
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until done.

Enjoy!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake Muffins

Oh. My. Heavens. These muffins are sinfully delicious. End of story. 

I was recruited to make muffins for a morning wedding shower. It took me a while to decide on what kind of muffins. I figured coffee cake was pretty classic. So tah-da! Coffee Cake Muffins. I did not try to make these healthy at all. I try to spare the general population and just try things out on the family. Nice, I know. 

These muffins are seriously scrumptious. Light and fluffy with that classic coffee cake taste. Emphasis on cake. These are basically bald cupcakes. But by calling them "muffins," they're socially acceptable to eat at breakfast. One recipe makes about 18 good sized muffins. I will warn you that the batter will seem very thick...but that is okay! You can definitely play with this by mixing in strawberries or blueberries. If you choose to do that, just make sure you roll them in flour before folding them into the batter to prevent them from sinking. You could also make a cream cheese icing to drizzle on top... Enjoy!


Sour Cream Coffee Cake Muffins

Ingredients for the muffins:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature 
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 extra large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for the topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 stick of butter
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 350*F and prepare your muffin pan. SPRAY THE PAPER LINERS WITH NON-STICK SPRAY...unless you like to peel half your muffin off with the liner. 
• Pull out your stand mixer. Add the butter and sugar and cream until light and fluffy. 5 minutes or so. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, one at a time. Then add your vanilla, sour cream and milk. Mix well.
• Sift together the flour, powder, soda and salt. With the mixer on low, carefully add the flour mixture to the batter. Beat just until mixed.
• For the crumble topping, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together with a pastry blender or a fork (this takes longer).
• Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Add the crumble on top.
• Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until the tops are slightly golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Along with everything else happening on Monday, the brother informed me that I should make something for him to share with his jazz band class. He decided on lemon poppy seed muffins, which are his favorite kind. I probably should've just done the processed box kind. It would've been easier, and I knew the homemade kind wouldn't be the brother's favorite...but I don't really count that as baking. And, I needed to legitimately bake something. That or workout again. And considering it hurt to move my arms and laugh and move, baking seemed like the better option. 

The verdict? The mother said they were the best real lemon poppy seed muffins ever. The brother said he (and most of his friends) prefers the processed junk (which really doesn't taste much like the real version), and "they're a little dry." I thought they were decent. They have more of a "real" lemon flavor and a heavier texture than the boxed variety. You can easily separate the top from the bottom without crumbs going everywhere. (This is important to me because I like to eat the bottom first...same goes for cupcakes.) 

Alterations...I used plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. I did keep the refined sugar and white flour because I didn't want to totally freak the kids out. Honestly, next time, I would go half-and-half on the flours and do 1/3 cup of honey instead of 2/3 cups sugar. I could get really crazy and switch out the butter for a fruit puree (ex. banana or apple). Maybe add a little coconut oil.


Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Inspiration from Luscious Confections

Ingredients:
2/3 cup sugar (try 1/3 cup honey)
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (try 1 all-purpose and 1 whole wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (try fruit puree) 
2 TBSP poppy seeds 
Organic milk (if needed to get desired consistency)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a 12-cup muffin pan with liners. (If you spray the liners with non-stick cooking spray, they will peel off the muffins beautifully.)
• Add the sugar to a large bowl. Grate the zest of the lemon into the sugar. Mix until it's evenly distributed. Add the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix together.
• In a separate bowl, mix the lemon juice, yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon and butter. 
• Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir gently to combine (don't over mix). The batter will be pretty thick and a little lumpy. You may add a little milk to the mixture if you like. 
• Divide the batter into the prepared muffin pan.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden.

Enjoy!  

Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

When we had family in for graduation, I made some slow cooker overnight oatmeal. I got that recipe from The Gracious Pantry, which is probably my new favorite place to find "clean" recipes. The oatmeal wasn't too bad, and it was nice having something ready to eat in the morning. I would recommend not adding the raisins in until the morning though. The definitely soaked up a lot of the liquid, so they looked pretty funky...and the brother couldn't handle it. Anyways, we had a little over 2 cups left, so I went on a quest to find a recipe for leftover oatmeal muffins. I found a recipe that I liked the basic concept of from Full Tummies. As I was reading comments, someone else had made some suggestions...so I took things I liked from both recipes and made my own! The muffins turned out really well. They kind of remind me of a very moist bran muffin. (You could probably add more flour, if you want a dryer texture. I like things pretty moist. Then, I don't need condiments.) They got eaten up pretty quickly, and even the brother liked them! (Little did he know I had used the oatmeal he didn't like to make them.) 


Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cooked oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 TBSP coconut oil (melted)
2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
2 TBSP honey
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

(If your leftover oatmeal is plain, you may consider adding cinnamon, vanilla, or whatever you like!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease your muffin pan (the recipe makes 12 good sized muffins). I pretty much just threw it all in our KitchenAid stand mixer and mixed it up. Then, divide the batter between each muffin cup. Bake for 25-ish minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy! 

Pumpkin Muffin Makeover

Here's one I've been meaning to put up for a long time! I made these yummy muffins towards the end of Christmas break. I took a recipe I found (my mom's mom's) for pumpkin bread. Then, I totally messed it up (eliminated the sugar, all-purpose flour, shortening, and water). I really had no idea how they would turn out. The batter was pretty good, which is always a good sign. They smelled good while they were baking, another good sign. When I finally tried one, I was impressed. I was kind of hoping that the brother would think they tasted too healthy, so then I would have leftovers to take to school...but no. He didn't even noticed. He loved them. The mother loved them too. Definitely a success for replacing processed ingredients with more natural ones!


Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup honey (local) 
4 eggs
1/3 cup all-natural applesauce*
2 cups all-natural canned pumpkin
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I probably added a little extra) 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
Grease or line a 12-cup muffin pan.
Mix honey, eggs and pumpkin
Add in dry ingredients and mix
*Add applesauce until the right moisture is achieved
Divide batter into muffin cups
Bake for...15-20 minutes or until done.

I think that's about right! It's been awhile since I made them... and of course I didn't exactly write everything down.

Oatmeal Banana Muffins

The basic idea for this recipe was found via Pinterest. However, I naturally changed some stuff up. Like, for instance, I did not use real sugar or real eggs...resulting in muffins that are just about 82 calories a pop. I also added some cinnamon. I was a little bit concerned about how they would turn out after making such changes. Honestly, I don't think anyone would ever know. Not that I've shared them with anyone to find out. (No, I did not eat all 12 at once. I froze 10. I have found it works really well to pull a couple out before I go to bed, so in the morning they're room temperature. Then, I just put a little peanut butter on them. SO GOOD.) This recipe is definitely a keeper!


Oatmeal Banana Muffins

Ingredients:
2.5 cups oats (can be gluten-free)
1 cup fat free plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup egg substitute (equivalent of 2 eggs)
3/4 cup sugar or sugar substitute (I used Ideal brown sugar)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda 
2 ripe bananas
Cinnamon for sprinkling (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Spray a 12-cup muffin pan or line it with the little paper things.
Mix everything together in a good food processor or blender (I used my Ninja).
Pour into pan.
Sprinkle with cinnamon. 
Bake, oh, 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Zucchini Muffins

We had a few extra zucchini hanging around that needed used up.  I thought it'd be nice to used them in muffins.  I was right.  We had lovely muffins for breakfast, and then I froze the extras for me to bring to school.  Perfect.  I found the recipe for these by Google-ing "healthy zucchini muffins."  The original recipe is from Cooking Light.  I tweaked a couple things.  It only calls for 1/2 cup of sugar, but I'd like to only sweeten with, say, honey in the future.  Maybe even replace the egg with chia.  I'll let you know how that goes, if I ever get around to it...

Zucchini Muffins

Based on "Kathie's Zucchini Muffins" from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

1  c whole wheat flour

2/3  c white flour

1/2  c sugar

1  tsp ground cinnamon

1/4  tsp nutmeg

1 1/4  tsp baking powder

1/2  tsp baking soda

1/4  tsp salt

1 1/3  c shredded zucchini

1/2  c milk of choice (skim, 1%, soy, etc.)

2  Tbsp natural unsweetened appplesauce

2  Tbsp natural (local) honey

1  egg

Cinnamon & Splenda to sprinkle on top (optional) 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine whole wheat flour and next seven ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl.  Stir with a whisk.  Combine zucchini, milk, applesauce, honey and egg in a small bowl.  Stir until blended.  Make a little well in the middle of the dry mixture.  Add wet mixture.  Stir just until moist.  Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray.  Sprinkle cinnamon & Splenda mixture over top of muffins.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until done.  Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire rack.  Enjoy!