Searching for healthy muffins

Although I like muffins a lot, I tend to avoid them. It’s just too unhealthy to eat them often. Coffee houses can carry freshly baked ones (most don’t) but they’re usually loaded with fats. I find muffins from the grocery store overly processed and certainly not fresh.
That leaves home-made, which I prefer and like to do, but the amounts of butter and/or
oil in the majority of recipes shock the hell out of me. Until now.

I bought a package of Bob’s Red Mill Flaxseed Meal recently and spotted a recipe on the back for bran flax muffins. The first thing I noticed was the absence of any oils. None!
The recipe only calls for flax, oats, flour, ginger, grated fruit and vegetables and the default baking powders. Crazy! Okay, so there is some sugar, but only one cup. Divide that over the 15 muffin yield and that’s a pretty damn low amount of sugar per unit.

Bran Flax Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups – Flour
• 3/4 cup – Bob’s Red Mill Flaxseed Meal
• 3/4 cup – Oats
• 1 cup – Brown Sugar
• 2 tsp – Baking Soda
• 1 tsp – Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp – Salt
• 2 tsp – Cinnamon
• 1 – Carrot (shredded)
• 1 – Apple (shredded)
• 1 – Banana (mashed)
• 3/4 cup – Milk
• 2  – Eggs (beaten)
• 1 tsp – Vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350°.
2. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl.
3. In another bowl mix the milk, vanilla and eggs.
4. Butter and flour muffin pans.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

What do they taste like? Just like muffins should. Really! Airy and full of flavour. So good in fact that we’ve made several batches where we tried different ingredients like zucchini, currants and pears. The muffins pictured above had blueberries. Once I tried dark chocolate chunks. Yes I know, not the heathiest option but com’on, they tasted great!