November 12, 2009
Tags: baking, fall, low fat, muffins, simple | Print this recipe
Remember when I said I wanted to try out more things with pumpkin in them. Well, be prepared because I’ve gone a little pumpkin crazy. I had a giant can of pumpkin pie mix that I used for those cupcakes and still had a bunch left over afterward so I went in search for some muffins to use up the rest. But those cupcakes were decidedly not good for you and I wanted to make something that I wouldn’t feel guilty about eating. But it still needs to taste good, you know? Well, this recipe totally satisfies both of those requirements.
Basically, I found a recipe that sounded good and I “healthed” it up. I replaced some of the white flour with wheat flour and I substituted the oil with applesauce. That might make these sound kind of boring, but it’s the streusal that makes them awesome. That’s the only part that I didn’t try to fix. In fact, I doubled the amount of streusal because it’s the best part. Even doing that, these are still only about 2 grams of fat and 200 calories per muffin. But the streusal makes them taste so good, you can’t even tell.
I was worried they wouldn’t be very moist since I removed the oil, but I think it’s the canned pumpkin that actually makes them extremely moist. A note I have to mention is that I used canned pumpkin pie mix not canned pumpkin. I actually wasn’t aware there was a difference until I went to grocery store last week and saw they were two different things. The pumpkin pie mix is more watery (which is why I think these muffins are so moist) and it already has some spices in it which adds even more flavor. Plus, I think the pumpkin pie mix is actually easier to find these days due to pumpkin shortage. You could use regular canned pumpkin instead, but I would increase the applesauce by about 1/4 cup and double the spices.
Since these are made without oil, they probably will start drying out if left out for too long, so store them in an air tight container. And if you don’t think you’ll be able to eat all the muffins within a few days, they freeze great. That’s what I did and every morning I take out a muffin and microwave it for about 30 seconds and it tastes just as good and moist as it did when it came out of the oven.
These also make great mini-muffins. This recipe makes about 18 muffins and I only have a 12 muffin tin, so I put the leftover batter in my mini-muffin tin. But you have to be careful with those because I promise you will not be able to stop eating them!
Pumpkin Apple Streusal Muffins
adapted from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice*
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin pie mix or canned pumpkin puree (I think the pumpkin pie mix adds more flavor)
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple
Streusal:
- 4 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tbsp. butter
*Note: If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, use the following instead: 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 3/4 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp. allspice and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Process
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Lightly grease muffin tin. This recipe makes 18 regular sized muffins or 12 regular sized muffins + 24 mini-muffins or 72 mini-muffins.
2. In a large bowl, combine flours, sugars, spices, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin and applesauce.
4. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples.
5. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins, about 3/4 full. An ice cream scoop is perfect for this.
6. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and cinnamon for the streusal topping. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffins.
7. Bake regular sized muffins for 20-25 minutes, mini-muffins for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Store in air tight container. Or freeze and microwave for 30-45 seconds to defrost individually.
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Theresa
These look really good and I love that they’re lightened up! I will definitely bookmark this recipe for later.
November 12, 2009 at 3:56 pm |
leslie
sounds wonderful to me!
leslie´s last blog ..The World Famous Bern’s Steakhouse..A Review
November 12, 2009 at 5:41 pm |
The Nomadic Gourmet
Wow, looks great! I love anything stuesal and I love anything with apple. I Bet your apple/pumpkin/struesel combo must be tasty
The Nomadic Gourmet´s last blog ..Cheese Straws
November 14, 2009 at 2:33 pm |