Pumpkin Bran Oat Muffins

I started this blog with the intention of telling you all about healthy recipes I was making.

And then the holidays happened.

To be sure, I haven’t gained any significant amount of weight from all the cookies… Nor have I been working out. Nor do I think there’s any cause for concern about all of this; I just wouldn’t want you to get the impression that all I eat are cookies!

I mean, sometimes I eat muffins too!

These muffins were an answer to my cravings for something healthier, but still carby and delicious. They’re definitely ‘healthy’ tasting, though my family rather enjoyed them. I mean, they’re fat-free and have bran in them, so of course they taste healthy. Straight out of the oven they’re kind of mushy, so much so that I’d consider lowering the amount of pumpkin next time. But if you let them cool properly, you’ll be left with a guilt-free treat filled with the spicy goodness of pumpkin pie and the health benefits of bran and oats.

I’m sure these would be delightful with chocolate chips. If that’s still healthy enough for you ;)

Pumpkin Bran-Oat Muffins
Adapted from here

¼ c. egg white substitute
2/3 c. sugar, Splenda, or sweetener of choice
1 ½ – 1 ¾ c. canned pumpkin (originally calls for one entire can, or 1 ¾ cup, but I used 1 ½ cups, and thought they were still a little too moist)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup nonfat milk
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup oats, ground to a flour
¼ cup wheat bran
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a 12-serving muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper baking cups and spray insides with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine pumpkin, eggs, splenda, vanilla, milk and stir well.

Sift in flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Fill prepared muffin cups equally, sprinkle tops with extra cinnamon.

Bake 15-20 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

If you use Splenda, each of these has a measly 68 calories, 3.1 grams of fiber, and 3.4 grams of protein!
With sugar, they have 111 calories.

Banana Biscotti

I have been craving biscotti like a madwoman. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I am decidedly addicted to all things crunchy and equally addicted to coffee. Biscotti are generally one of my favorite cookies, I think… Along with virtually every kind there is, anyways.

I stumbled upon this little recipe for banana biscotti on (where else) foodgawker. It fit nicely with the fact that a) I wanted biscotti b) It’s relatively low in fat c) I had four overripe bananas living on my counter, and most of the recipes I wanted to make involved a set of 3 bananas, leaving one poor soul out. So I set out to make these lovely little bites after dinner one day! (Do pardon the pictures… I should really get in the habit of baking in the morning!)

My pictures again don’t do these justice. They have that delightful crunch and are almost-buttery and delicious. They’re not too sweet, which is helped by adding some mini chocolate chips into the mix (I did this for one of the two logs I baked). I personally liked the subtleness of the flavor, though I would have been happy with a little more banana (and I used a fairly ripe banana as well). Overall, I was happy with these and will probably make them again to satisfy my biscotti cravings. I wonder if they’d work with pumpkin?

The only real notes about the recipe are that I added mini chocolate chips instead of drizzling chocolate, mainly because I’m lazy. I also never got to try them with coffee. Darn. Oh, and my ability to cut things in even pieces is apparently nonexistent. I liked the thinner ones better as they got crispier, and could generally have baked them a few extra minutes to really get that proper crunch. Enjoy!

Banana Biscotti
taken from here (I made some changes to the directions, but…)

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large banana)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
mini chocolate chips to taste (optional)

1. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside
2. In a large bowl, combine oil, banana, egg and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Add flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until just combined. The mixture is quite dry, and you do have to mix it in forcefully with your hands, but it will work, I promise. If you want chocolate chips, this is the time to try to mix them in (it works to kind of “fold” them into the middle when you’re shaping the logs as well).
3. Take half of the dough and shape it into a log (the original instructions say to put it on a lightly floured surface but I put it straight on the parchment-paper covered cookie sheet with no ill effects). The log will be bout 8″ long; flatten it out to a 3″ wide rectangle. Repeat with other log and place on greased/parchment-lined cookie sheet about 2-3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until firm and cracked on top. Transfer logs to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. [I let them cool on the sheet, oops! It still worked...] Decrease oven to 275 degrees.
5. Once cooled, place the logs on a cutting board, and cut each log diagonally into 1/2″-3/4″ thick slices with a serrated knife. Place the slices cut side down on the cookie sheet. Return to oven and bake an additional 20 minutes; flip the cookies over and bake another 20 minutes on the other side. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
6. If desired, put some semi-sweet chocolate chips in a ziploc bag. Place chocolate in microwave for 40 seconds. Continue in 10-15 second intervals until chips are melted. Snip off a tiny corner of the ziploc bag and drizzle over biscotti.

If you make 20 biscotti, each has 74.2 calories, 1.1 grams fat, 0.4 grams fiber, and 1.5 grams protein.

“Carrot Cake” Pancakes

I am obsessed with pancakes. If it were up to me (and if I weren’t quite so lazy about it) I would probably eat pancakes every day. The kind they serve in the dining hall at school might do in a pinch, but I’m fairly certain they’re of the frozen-and-thawed variety; nothing like the fabulously fluffy kind you can prepare at home!

Of course, if I ate the fluffy-Ihop variety every day I’d probably expand indefinitely, and while this is sometimes tempting, I usually opt for healthier substitutions. I used to make “protein pancakes” featuring soy flour and wheat bran to cut back on calories and amp up nutrition, but honestly they were kind of a mushy mess a lot of the time. So I was happy to find some healthy pancake recipes on HungryGirl that seemed to cook up in an at least somewhat fluffy manner. I did struggle a bit with keeping them from burning (clearly) but they were delicious and properly spiced and everything. I drizzled with sugar-free maple syrup, used extra pumpkin in place of the pineapple, added some ginger, nixed the glaze, omitted the raisins and used up some blueberries that were beckoning to me from the fridge, but otherwise I followed her recipe (wow, that was a lot more modifications than I remembered…)

They might not be the most perfect-looking specimens, but they were delicious, filling, and nutritious, and that’s more than enough for me.

Morning, sunshine!

Carrot Cake Pancakes
adapted from HungryGirl

1/4 cup shredded carrots, chopped
1/4 cup egg substitute
3 tbsp. canned pure pumpkin
2 tbsp. Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or milk of choice)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 no-calorie sweetener packet
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp. ginger
Dash salt
~1/3 cup blueberries

Place carrots in a microwave-safe bowl with 1 tbsp. water. Cover and microwave for about 1 minute, until softened. Once cool enough to handle, add egg substitute, pumpkin,  soymilk, vanilla extract, and 2 tbsp. water. Mix well and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all other pancake ingredients: flour, baking powder, sweetener, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Stir well. Add carrot-egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Gently stir in blueberries, if using.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium-high heat. Add half of the batter to the pan to form one large pancake. Cook for 2 – 3 minutes, until pancake begins to bubble and is solid enough to flip. Gently flip and cook for an additional 1 – 2 minutes, until both sides are lightly browned and inside is cooked through. Plate your pancake. Remove skillet from heat, re-spray, and return to medium-high heat. Repeat with remaining batter to make a second pancake. [I just made smaller ones and got 3 or so of them, use your own basic pancake-making technique however you'd like!]
With my modifications, these provide about 210 calories and 10 grams of fiber!

Ginger-Raisin Bran Muffins

There is something delightfully comforting about the gentle heat of ginger. I could wax poetic about my adoration of this simple root for hours, but rather than bore you with the details, I will simply present you with a somewhat sub-par photographic display of my love. It may be hard to tell, but these muffins were made in my heart-shaped smaller-than-normal-but-bigger-than-mini muffin tin. Spreading the ginger love, man!

Filled with gingery-sweet goodness

This recipe came from Vegan with a Vengeance with minimal modifications by yours truly. While I am no longer vegan (and my former veganism is a story for another time) I still enjoy baking vegan when possible. I’ve already mentioned Isa and her other cookbook, Veganomicon; VWAV is her original, and I have been a follower ever since I discovered it. These muffins are relatively healthy (particularly since I cut some of the oil out) and the pockets of sweet heat from the crystallized ginger and the raisin are positively delightful. They’d make a fabulous on-the-go breakfast. My mom mentioned that chocolate-chips would be good instead of raisins, but I like them as-is (back to the raisins vs. chocolate chips debate… alas!). Make them. Enjoy them. And feel good about it.

Ginger Raisin Bran Muffins
adapted slightly from Vegan with a Vengeance

1/2 c raisins

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 c sugar

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 c wheat bran

1 1/4 c nondairy milk (I use Unsweetened Almond Breeze)

2 tbsp canola oil

1/4 c applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c chopped ginger

Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease 12-muffin tin (in my case, a 12 mini-muffin tin; I halved this recipe). Soak raisins in hot water to cover, set aside.

Sift together flour through salt (dry ingredients). Mix in bran. Create a well in the center and add ingredients through vanilla. Mix with spoon until just combined. Drain raisins and fold in along with crystallized ginger.

FIll muffin cups most ofhte way full and bake for 20 to 22 minutes (~15 for the mini ones) until toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

With my muffin tin, a half-batch made 10 with about 86.8 calories, 1.8 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of fiber, and 1.5 grams of protein.

With a full-sized muffin tin the muffins have about 144.6 calories, 3.0 grams fat, 2.5 grams fiber, and 2.5 grams protein.