Gingerbread Muffins--super healthy and delicious...

As many of your know I have been doing Weight Watchers on line for the past 5 months and have lost 46#. It is a great program and pretty easy to follow. My downfall has always been baked goods. And, the biggest problem is that I LOVE to bake.  So, I have been trying to balance my love for eating and baking with my love for not being fat and there is always quite a bit of tension between the two things.

I modified a muffin recipe I liked and then modified it some more and then again, and I have finally come up with a fantastic recipe that is super healthy and tasty. I eat one about 4-5 mornings a week along with a cup of tea and some Oikos Vanilla Greek Yogurt. If you know WW points, the muffins are 3 WW Points+ and so is the yogurt, so for 6 points I have a healthy and satisfying breakfast. But, you don't have to be watching your weight to love these muffins.  Here is the recipe, it makes a dozen nice sized muffins. I bake them in a Pampered Chef stone muffin pan without using cupcake papers. I tried other pans but they don't rise as high.

Gingerbread Muffins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine the following dry ingredients:

• 1 3/4 C flour, I use 1 C whole wheat and 3/4 C regular unbleached flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Mix the following together, then add to the dry ingredients, stirring till combined, but it is OK if it is a bit lumpy:

• 1 C canned pumpkin puree
• 1/4 C applesauce, unsweetened [you could use oil instead, but I wanted a low fat muffin**]
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 C water 
• 1/2 C sorghum [or honey]
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Scoop into 12 muffin cups. I like to use a 1/2 C ice cream scoop and then just plop a scoop into each muffin cup. [3 WW plus points per muffin, 2 for 5 points if you use sorghum rather than honey]. Bake for about 20-25minutes till the middle of the muffin pops back when you touch with your finger.

You may want to add nuts, raw sunflower seeds, cinnamon chips or dried fruit to batter before baking. I like to top with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar before baking, or what I did to the muffins in the photo above was add 1 tsp of streusel to each muffin.

Streusel topping: I make up a batch of this and keep it in the fridge in a zip-loc bag. It will last a long time and then it is easy to scoop some out to top muffins or coffee cakes. 1 tsp doesn't add any WW points, but when I use it, I count 2 muffins as 6 points.

Streusel:

 Mix together till crumbly: 
1/4 C butter [1/2 stick]
1/4 C  white sugar
2/3 C flour. 

Store in a bag or jar in the fridge and spoon it out as needed. 


Take care,
Jill

Note: For a more pumpkiny muffin which is not so gingerbready, omit the cloves and the ginger. 
**If you use a WW healthy oil in place of the applesauce, count the muffin as 4 WW+ points and each one has one healthy oil to help meet your daily healthy guidelines. If you have problems getting your healthy oils in daily, this may be a great way to do it.