Fruit

After a mishap with the muffins I made last time, I thought maybe there is a better way. I am a regular lurker on Hungry Girl and last week, she posted on her Chew The Right Thing thread about banana muffins. Chew The Right Thing is a blog that happens once a week concerning making high fat foods diet friendly. She showcases food from Starbucks to Taco Bell to homemade comfort food…it rocks!

So last week, she featured banana bread, which can have up to 400 calories a slice! I’ve yet to find a dense cakey banana bread that’s diet friendly, and tonight, I’m still searching unfortunately! I did play a little bit with the bread, but it wasn’t to where it would affect the texture. To see the original recipe, click here.

Here is my take on the recipe:

** denotes changes

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)
1 tbs Splenda brown sugar **
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs **
1/2 cup no-sugar-added applesauce
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. maple extract **
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
Optional Toppings: no-calorie spray butter, Cool Whip Free

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine both types of flour, Splenda, Splenda brown sugar blend, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon (in other words, all dry ingredients). In a separate bowl, mix together the mashed bananas, eggs, applesauce, and vanilla extract (all the wet ingredients). Add this mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients, and stir until just blended. Spoon batter into a cupcake tin sprayed with nonstick spray or lined with paper cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Makes 12.

Calories: 138
Fat: 1.5 g
Fiber: 3.75 g

Points: 2

This comes out more like a dry bread with a lack of flavor. I’d prefer more moisture and density with spices. I’ll have to take that into account for next time…

I’m back to blogging!! Last week, I made cinnamon streusel muffins from a mix, and it came out delicious. I bought a LOT of blueberries (Winn Dixie had them at $1/pack), so I wanted to use up some this week. I found this recipe off of Betty Crocker’s website, so here is my attempt.

Cinnamon Streusel Topping

1/4 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose or whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat)
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar (I used 1 tablespoon of Splenda Brown Sugar, since it measures 1/2 cup to 1 cup regular brown sugar)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons firm butter or margarine
Muffins
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used 1/4 cup of applesauce)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose or whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat flour)
1/3 cup granulated sugar (I used 1/3 cup Splenda)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh or canned (drained) blueberries (I used fresh)

1. Heat oven to 400°F. Grease bottoms only of 12 regular-size muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. In medium bowl, mix 1/4 cup flour, the brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until crumbly.
2. In large bowl, beat milk, oil, vanilla and egg until well blended. Stir in 2 cups flour, the granulated sugar, baking powder and salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Gently stir in blueberries. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle each with about 2 teaspoons streusel topping.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from pan to cooling rack. Serve warm or cool.

All in all, this recipe is not very sweet at all. I think it would taste loads better with some brown sugar in the batter. I think I would also put another egg white to make the muffins more moist, since these were a bit on the dry side. Overall I would give these muffins a 6/10 since the blueberries and streusel topping helped enhance the muffin for the lack of sweetness it had.