Blueberry-Zucchini Muffins

HOWDY FRIENDS!  What a beautiful day the Lord has made today.  After so much cold, yucky weather, today’s sunshine and temps in the 70’s are delightful!

Since I had a day at home (rare lately), I decided to clean out my fridge and try a new recipe…all at the same time.  I had blueberries and zucchini that definitely needed to be used…pronto…so I decided to try a recipe I found over on Abby’s Manila Spoon blog site a while back.  I kept meaning to try it, but just hadn’t found the time.  Today was the perfect occasion.

I’m currently participating in a 12-week weight-loss challenge at my office, and I didn’t want to blow it completely, so I made a few minor adaptations to Abby’s Blueberry-Zucchini Bread recipe, and came up with these muffins.  (According to MyFitnessPal.com they are about 101 calories each.)  They smelled marvelous while baking, and tasted great too.  I’ll definitely be making these again.  Thanks for the delicious recipe Abby!!

Ingredients:

1 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup Whey Low® Type D (or regular sugar or your favorite sugar substitute)

1/4 tsp salt (I always use 1/2 of what the original recipe calls for)

1 tsp sodium-free baking powder (Since I'm using some whole wheat flour which is a bit more dense, I added extra to help the batter rise.)

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg (I think nutmeg can be a bit overpowering, so I only used 1/2 of what the original recipe called for)

1/2 cup egg substitute (or 2 eggs)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (I added this in place of some of the oil...next time I think I'll leave the oil out completely.)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups grated zucchini (The original recipe called for 1 cup, but 1-1/2 cups would use up what was in my fridge, so I went with that!  It worked fine.)

1 cup blueberries

Topping (optional):

1 tsp. freshly grated lemon peel

1 Tbsp. Sugar in the Raw (or any coarse/Turbinado sugar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Combine dry ingredients (flours, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg) in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk well. 

Toss blueberries with about 2 Tbsp. of the dry ingredient mixture in a separate small bowl.  (This will help prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your muffins.)

In a separate mixing bowl whisk together the eggs, vanilla, applesauce, oil and zucchini.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until combined.

Gently fold in the blueberries (don’t worry…if you break a few, it will just make your batter more colorful!), and spoon batter into greased (I spray mine with baking spray) muffin tins (I always use a large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop for the perfect amount of batter and MUCH less mess!  NOTE:  the way I made this recipe, it made 13 muffins.  Since my muffin pan only makes 12, I used a small ramekin for the extra batter…came out perfect!).

Mix the topping ingredients together and sprinkle generously onto the top of each muffin.

 

Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until a tester/toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for about 5 minutes in the pan and then remove them from the pan and allow them to cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.  Serve warm (but NOT right out of the oven, or those hot blueberries WILL burn your mouth!...Don’t ask me how I know this, hee, hee…).  My husband like to add butter to his, but I enjoy them just the way they are.  To me, a great muffin doesn’t need any accompaniment!

Well…gotta get busy on this beautiful day.  Lots to do here in Zig Zag.  Be sure to give these muffins (or Abby’s original Blueberry-Zucchini Bread recipe) a try.  You won’t regret it!  And be sure to stop by Manila Spoon and check out all the other yummy recipes she has posted while you’re there.

Blessings,

--Faithy