Healthy Cranberry Walnut Muffins

The parents wanted muffins... the siblings wanted breakfast food... so given the usual fare of butter-laden, sugary muffins, I wanted to make a "healthy" muffins. I came across a recipe for Cranberry Walnut Muffins on Ezine @rticles. I made small adjustments.

Here's the thing... I trust my food blogs (see right column) and my usual All Recipes, Simply Recipes, Epicurious, Gourmet, and Food Network websites. But I was curious... and I was a bit disappointed. The muffins were good. Not stellar. The family reviews were mixed. My mother adored them. The younger siblings complained (but mostly because they don't like anything without chocolate?). I think it's a solid (metaphorically speaking), good muffin. I straddle the line and can't tell. On days when I want a pastry without the guilt, I can make this. Tasty enough to satisfy a craving. Healthy to make you feel great!

The muffins are incredibly low in fat. The changes are subtle, though the one thing I would change is the orange-y taste of the muffins. Even when cutting out the orange peel, I felt like the orange flavor was too strong. But that's just me. I don't like orange-y desserts. I'll eat orange chocolate, for example, but I never want or love it. (Sacriligious! I know!) The combo of oats, whole wheat flour, walnuts and applesauce are a delightful combo for a healthy muffin. If you're diabetic or cutting out sugar from your diet, you can use splenda. Also, use no sugar added applesauce!

Pros:

- Healthy, guilt-free!

- Super easy and quick to throw together

- Very moist muffins

- Love the walnuts

Cons:

- Orange-y

- Felt like there were too many cranberries

- Doesn't have butter (I'm starting to sound like Paula Deen now)

- Batter came out very wet... good moist muffins but had to bake longer than expected

Whole Wheat Cranberry Walnut Muffins

• 3/4 cup APF (if you're forgetting my lingo, refer to earlier post)
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar (I wonder how brown sugar would change the flavor...)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (I would also consider adding 1/2 - 1 tsp of all spice? I wanted more flavor!)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup orange juice (I would reduce to a little more than 3/4... 1 cup seemed too much)
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 dried cranberries (based on personal preference, I'd reduce to 1/3)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix both flours, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon.

2. In a separate bowl, beat egg, orange juice, and applesauce until combined. Add mixture to flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Do NOT overmix the batter. Batter will have a lumpy appearance.

3. Fold in cranberries and walnuts. Fill in your muffin tins.

4. Made about 14 smaller muffins (or 12 big ones) for me, depending on how you fill your tins. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until golden brown. I personally preferred that the muffins baked longer, because the batter was very wet and I wanted to make sure everything was cooked all the way through. 25 minutes gave me a nice crunchy top and maintained the very moist inside. These babies were pretty dense muffins!