Monday, November 19, 2007

Healthy Mocha Muffins

Yes, as you realized, the first few posts will be related to Coffee, Cocoa or Chai.

I bought muffin tray last week, and was looking for a recipe to make muffins - not the ones with a lot of butter and sugar - I wanted to make healthy breakfast muffins.

So, I went to google.com and searched for a recipe with the following terms: "Chocolate Yogurt Muffins". And I found this recipe: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,174,147169-239207,00.html

When I read the ingredients, I thought this was an almost-perfect recipe for healthy mocha muffins. I tweaked the recipe (eliminated sugar and reduced the quantity of oil) and here it is:

What you'll need:
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup melted semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Nestle chips)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (you can increase the quantity)
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup fresh strong brewed coffee (I think this will taste better if we use instant coffee/espresso powder)
1 cup plain yogurt (I used Stonyfield low-fat yogurt)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Egg substitute equal to 2 eggs
1/4 cup prune puree (I bought the baby food brand - Gerber)
1/3 cup applesauce (I bought the baby food brand - Gerber)

Optional:
2 table spoons of Sugar to sprinkle on top of the muffins (Optional)
Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar if making this for dessert

Sugar: Since I eliminated sugar in the original recipe, I added prune puree, apple sauce and semi-sweet chocolate chips for sweetness

Makes 16 muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degress. Grease muffin tray (This is an important step. If using muffin cups, please grease them too. I used olive oil spray and also sprinkled whole wheat flour.) Mix dry ingredients (1 to 8) set aside. Beat the wet ingredients with a whisk. Fold in the wet mix with the flour mix - be careful not to form any lumps.

Half-fill the muffin tins, sprinkle sugar on top (optional) and bake for 20 minutes. The muffins came out very well - and tasted very good. (I had 2 muffins for breakfast this morning.) Drop me a note if this recipe worked for you.