Health Nut Blueberry Muffins

Most Helpful Positive Review

Now that I've been making these muffins once a week for a few months, I figure I better update this review... First off, the recipe is easily adaptable to personal tastes or sudden lack of ingredients. Second, it tastes absolutely wonderful! (if you couldn't already tell from how often I make them...) Changes I made: used whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup of applesauce instead of the bananas because I utterly despise bananas, 1/2 cup of brown sugar somewhat packed, 1 cup of milk with vinegar, left out the oil, added 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp all spice, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, mixed frozen berries and Craisins. Things to note: The type of flour you use is very important. I learned this after buying some awful whole wheat white flour from Trader Joe's. It made my muffins all dry and tough. As soon as I went back to the whole wheat flour from Fresh and Easy, they were all nice and soft and moist again. If you're going to use dried fruit, remember they tend to suck up some of that moisture, and if you use frozen fruit, they tend to add moisture (It also make your muffins look a funny swamp green if you mix leaky red and blue berries into the wet batter. Better mix it into the dry stuff first if you don't want it to look gross.)

These are my absolute most FAVOURITE muffins! I ate 3 yesterday :) I do make some substitutions though, to *hopefully* make them a little healthier: Only whole wheat flour (therefore 1.5 cups), 1/2 c brown sugar instead of 3/4 c white sugar, wheat bran instead of oat bran (it's all I had), pecans instead of walnuts (personal preference), applesauce instead of oil, and lemon juice/skim milk instead of buttermilk (put 1 Tablespoon lemon juice in a cup measure, fill the cup with skim milk - voila!) I also add: 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg (YUM!) and 1/2 cup raspberries (in addition to the 1 cup blueberries). The raspberries make it SOOOO delicious! I rip each one in 2 or 3 pieces to spread 'em out and prevent the muffins from falling apart. I use this as my "healthy muffin base" now - and can't wait to try all sorts of additions. Maybe next time it will be strawberries and apples? Or raisins and carrots? Maybe banana and chocolate chips? Blackberries and coconut??? The possibilities are endless! (Although I would probably cut the blackberries into smaller pieces, like the raspberries). For those who found the recipe dry.... try more applesauce? Happy Muffining!

I enjoy baked goods and this is among my favorites especially because of its health value. But I will note that I changed a few things according to what was available to me and maybe better. Changes: 1) instead of all-purpose flour, I used whole wheat pastry flour 2)instead of just regular blueberries, I used wild dried blueberries and dried cranberries, waiting until the batter was in the muffin cups to add them -one small spoon of blueberries and one small spoon of cranberries (the amounts each covered a half of the batter's surface in the cup) -and then mixed the berries and batter in the cups (I used a chopstick for this) 3) instead of using white granulated sugar, I used packed brown sugar in about the same amount as the granulated sugar, if not a little bit more. I did this to continue the theme of healthy ingredients and earthy flavor. The result was an EXCELLENT muffin that in my opinion is better than some found in restaurants. The muffins are sweet, fairly light for a wheat-laden muffin and has berry in every bite.