Thursday, May 23, 2013

Healthier Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins




Being fairly new to cooking, I've been struggling with wanting to cook every interesting recipe that comes my way and wanting to eat healthier.  I even tried a stint of not eating dairy.  That lasted about two days before my love of food got the better of me.  There are just too many delicious things out there to start limiting what I eat.  I'm even getting better with peppers, which used to be my arch nemeses.  Now they are more like that drunk uncle that you would rather not be around, but every once in a while he get's you an awesome gift and he doesn't seem so bad for a little while.

My love of food, though, doesn't cloud my judgement all the time, just some of the time.  I make sure to keep salt and fat in moderation.  I make sure I eat fruits or vegetables at every meal.  And I have lessened my diary intake and tried meatless Mondays.  Knowing the facts and weighing both sides against each other is part of a healthy lifestyle.  This article can be a nice starting point to educating yourself, but make sure to do all your research and don't just rely on one article.  Decide what's best for you.  And for me it was limiting, but not cutting out my dairy and meat intake.  Part of life is being healthy so you can experience more, but at the same time, in my opinion, you can't eliminate other experiences just to be healthy.

And on that note, I give you a healthier recipe for blueberry muffins that uses no butter or oil, and instead uses fat free sour cream and apple sauce.  You won't be able to tell the difference.  Full experience, with more health benefits.  Plus blueberries are a super food, so besides the sugar in these, they are a pretty good win for a breakfast or snack food.

Included is a crumb topping if you want to forgo a little bit of the healthiness factor and make these a little more dessert like.

Healthier Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins

Servings: 24 muffins

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
1 cup of White Sugar, plus one pinch
1/2 cup of Brown Sugar
1 cup of Unsweetened Apple Sauce
1 1/2 tsp of Vanilla Extract
4 cup of Unbleached All Purpose Flour (you can substitute 2 cups for Whole Wheat Flour)
1 tsp of Salt
1 tsp of Baking Soda
2 tsp of Cinnamon
1 tsp of Nutmeg
1 1/2 cups of Fat Free Sour Cream
2 cups of Blueberries
1 tsp of Lemon Juice
Crumb Topping - optional (recipe below)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line 2 muffin tins.

Rince the blueberries and dry.  Then in a bowl mix together berries, lemon juice and pinch of sugar.

In a large bowl beat the eggs while gradually adding the sugars and apple sauce.  Add vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and baking soda.

Alternate mixing the flour and the sour cream into the egg mixture.  Do not over mix because this recipe already makes a dense muffin.

Gently fold in the blueberries.

Scoop batter into muffin cups.  Fill at least 3/4 full.

For a more dessert style muffin, top with Crumb Cake Topping before baking.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Crumb Cake Topping

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp of cold Butter
2/3 cup of Brown Sugar
1/4 cup of Flour
Pinch of Cinnamon




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