Healthified Banana Muffins

I'm such a sweetaholic, so I'll admit, I'm usually a bit apprehensive when I see "healthy" recipes, particularly sweets, because I just don't expect them to taste as good as the full fat/sugar ones. That being said, I will try anything once. These banana muffins however, will be made again and again. 

fat free milk + egg whites + greek yogurt + stevia > whole milk + eggs + butter + sugar

That's the trade off, folks. In this case, the > symbol means "healthier than" and actually should have a line under it so it can double as also mean "better or equal tasting to" too.

I made a couple substitutions to this recipe from Good Karma Eats.

Healthified Banana Muffins

1/3 + 1 1/2 Tablespoons Truvia (no-calorie sweetener extracted from the stevia plant)
1/4 cup butter
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
2 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare pan or muffin tin as preferred. Mix butter and sugar on medium speed until combined. Add milk, yogurt, egg whites and vanilla, mixing until combined. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Then, add dry ingredients to the main bowl and mix until just combined. Fill muffin tin 3/4 full. Bake for 22 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes.

Eating these warm for breakfast or a little snack is just perfect.

If you're feeling a bit more sinful, try this banana bread with frosting. To. Die. For.


This post is linked up to some of the parties listed under my Show & Tell tab at the top of the page.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar Chocolate Chip Frosting

The debate. I have yet to have it on here, so here we go.

What is the difference between a cupcake and a muffin?

Anyone wanna take a stab at it? Please do. I'll give it my best shot. Here's what I think.

A cupcake is cake and a muffin is bread. Both work well in the cup shape with liners, or not. Cupcakes always have frosting, while muffins sometimes do. I prefer my muffins without it as I want to savor the taste of the bread alone. Along those lines, I think cupcakes are lighter, while muffins are denser. (More dense? Sounds strange to you? Me too. Denser is correct though.) My guess is that the general population would say muffins are healthier. Realistically, this is not the case since they have a lot of the same ingredients as cupcakes, unless they are made specifically with certain health-conscious substitutions. Whew! Any other critical differences I'm missing?

Well, I pinned this recipe from Life's Simple Measures. Jess refers to them as a cupcakes, as the blog she found them on did. After making, baking and tasting it, I'm going with muffin. They are dense, don't rise much and seem more like bread to me, rather than cake. Plus, they have oatmeal in them, which seems like more of a muffin quality to me than cupcake-esque. Not that it really matters. Whatever you want to refer to it as, I'm sure you'll call them yummy, too.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins, 12 regular sized muffins
from Life's Simple Measures via How Sweet It Is (which by the way has 169 comments. Jeepers!)

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar

4 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 cup old fashioned oats

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

4 Tbsp milk

1 c. semisweet chocolate chips (tossed in flour)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare your muffin tin as you wish. Whisk eggs and sugar until well, until there are no lumps. Add vanilla and butter, mixing until smooth. Now, add all your dry ingredients: flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, mixing until smooth. Stir milk in completely. Finally, fold in chocolate chips.

Since I saw how little the muffins rise in the original recipe, I filled my liners nearly full which worked perfectly for me because I wanted fuller cups. Bake 15-17 minutes, or until muffins are set and golden. Let cool before frosting.

While the muffins are baking, you can make your frosting. I halved the original recipe because unlike Jess at Life's Simple Measures, my waistline cannot afford a 1:1 frosting:muffin ratio. Plus, since I filled the cups nearly full, I only had 12 muffins, not 24 like she did. So, if you've got 12 muffins baking, go with the recipe below, if you have more or can simply indulge in more, double what you see below.

Cinnamon Sugar Chocolate Chip Frosting 

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp milk (if needed)

1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Beat butter until smooth. Add in powdered sugar slowly so as not to create a white mess in your kitchen. Or on yourself. Increasing the speed slowly, add brown sugar and vanilla, beating for 2-3 minutes. Add milk, until you reach desired consistency. Fold your chocolate chips in. And sprinkle some more on top if you wish.

I just love chocolate chips. All over the place in this recipe!

I have had a couple of these and every time I bite into one I am so pleasantly surprised by the muffin flavor! The people in the office kept asking what it was and how different it was from most muffins.  I think it's the cinnamon.

Oh, and what do you think? What is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?


This post is linked up to some of the parties listed under my Show & Tell tab at the top of the page. 

Salted Caramel Banana Muffins

Salted caramel anything, I'll eat it. My favorite drink at Starbucks is a salted caramel hot chocolate. I love salted caramel chocolate. I would try salted caramel cockroaches. Okay, maybe not quite cockroaches. But, salted caramel gets me almost every time, which is why I just had to make these salted caramel banana muffins I pinned after my Grammy gave me some bananas gone brown.

I'll cut to the chase.

Salted Caramel Banana Muffins 12 muffins
from Add A Pinch
2 cups flour (I used all-purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, overly ripe
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup walnuts (optional)
5 ounces caramel candies
1 Tablespoon heavy cream
sea salt, sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 and prep muffin tin with liners or lightly buttered.

Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) into a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream bananas and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time until creamy. Then, add melted butter, mixing until well combined. Finally, add vanilla.

Add dry ingredients in slowly, until just combined. Add walnuts if desired. Be very careful not to over mix or your muffins will be dry.

Divide batter among muffin cups. I filled my muffins cups nearly full because that was how much batter there was, which worked out perfectly because when you add the caramel on top, they do not rise very much.

Prepare the caramel by melting the caramels and heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl, until caramels just begin to melt. Remove from microwave and stir until smooth. Add sprinkling of sea salt and stir.

Spoon 1 teaspoon or a little more onto the top center of each cup. It's okay if it doesn't stay perfectly in the middle. The original recipe says to make a little indentation with the back of the spoon in the center of each cup to fill with caramel. I think my batter was a little thinner than hers because it wouldn't hold the indentations. Turns out, it doesn't matter because it works just fine to make a blob on top of the batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven  and allow to cool for at least 3 minutes before removing from pan. Make sure you wait longer than you think before biting into one of these as the caramel in the middle can burn your tongue. Or lip. Or roof of mouth. Not that I have had that experience or anything like that.

The caramel glazes over the top as you can see above, and then forms this wonderful little pocket in the middle of the muffin. Mmmmm mmm.

Oh salted caramel, you are so right. My super talented friend Michelle shares my affinity for salted caramel. In fact, neither of us being coffee people - gasp! I know - she is the one who turned me on to the salted caramel hot chocolates from Starbucks. She has a couple delicious salted caramel recipes on her blog you'll want to try if you love salted caramel like us: Salted Caramel Popcorn or Salted Caramel Chocolate Pie or Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies. Those recipes are probably more reliable than my silly attempt at Salted Caramel Fudge this past winter. Oye.

I sure hope it's not too long until we meet again salted caramel...


This post is linked up to some of the parties listed under my Show & Tell tab at the top of the page.

Oatmeal Blueberry Applesauce Muffins

It appears as if I am on an every other month (ish) schedule with the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Mom's Crazy Cooking. I started in November, then February and now, April's theme is blueberry muffins. I am a sucker for muffins and throwing blueberries in there makes them one of my favorite types so I cannot wait to see all of the awesome recipes linked up this month.

I've been trying to eat a little bit healthier so when I found this recipe on Honey, What's Cooking?, I thought I should give it a shot. 151 calories and low fat from a moist muffin, what's not to love?

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups oatmeal (quick minute is fine)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners or grease/flour.

First combine the flour, oats, baking powder and soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine the applesauce, buttermilk, canola oil, brown sugar, vanilla and egg. Then, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold to mix. Be careful not to overmix.

Finally, fold in the blueberries. Again, it's important not to overmix.

Divide the batter into your 12 cupcake cavities. These muffins do not rise much at all, so filling the cups to the top is just fine and should work out perfectly to fill 12 with the amount of batter you make.

Bake the muffins for 16-18 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool and enjoy! 

These muffins are dense and moist as promised. Plus, they're not as bad for you as your typical blueberry muffin!

I'm so thankful you don't consume calories by just oogling over the blueberry muffins recipes listed below.


This post is linked up to some of the parties listed under my Show & Tell tab at the top of the page. Go check them out for more inspiration!