Been awhile since I did a nice photo-recipe, so I’ll give it a go! I flipped upon this recipe in the April 2010 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine. Finally, my annual subscription pays off! I usually have cereal for breakfast, along with some almond butter on a slice of toast. However, it’s messy and not the easiest thing to eat in the car (especially a stick shift). And, I’ll admit it, toast does tend to get a bit boring after awhile. So I saw these, at only 160 calories, and thought I could try it out. The recipe is at the bottom of the page if you’d also like to try it out!

The ingredients are pretty basic, save for the carrots, fruit additive (recipe calls for prunes, I used cranberries) and molasses. Oddly enough I already had molasses for my ginger snap loving family. So I fetched some matchstick carrots and some dried cranberries.

The fats in this recipe is compromised of a tiny tablespoon of veg. oil, and applesauce, which is my favorite fat substitute!

I’ll be the first to admit the batter looks like cat barf. Chunky and moist. The chunkiness makes it REALLY easy to spoon into the 12 muffin cups. It made 12 exactly. You fill them up to the brim, and then they’ll increase in size very slightly. Pop them in at 400 degrees for 23 – 25 minutes (at least that’s what the recipe says, I pulled mine out at 21, because my oven runs a little warm).

A very lovely outcome, visually anyway. The first bite reveals quite a number of things. Number one, chop up the matchstick carrots. Yikes, they were all over the place, and I don’t think they were able to cook thoroughly. This particular part was 90% responsible for my negative first-taste. The other 10% was the blandness. I would add just a touch of white sugar or some more cranberries to sweeten them up a bit. I’ll re-do the recipe and make the proper changes. I have high hopes for a better outcome!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cup(s) all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon(s) baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon(s) baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon(s) salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon(s) ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup(s) old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked
  • 1/3 cup(s) nonfat (skim) milk
  • 2/3 cup(s) applesauce, unsweetened
  • 1/4 cup(s) packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup(s) light (mild) molasses
  • 2 tablespoon(s) canola oil
  • 1  large egg
  • 3  medium carrots, shredded (1.5 cups)
  • 1/2 cup(s) prunes, chopped

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease 12 standard muffin-pan cups or line cups with fluted paper liners.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir in oats. In medium bowl, with fork, mix milk, applesauce, brown sugar, molasses, oil, and egg until blended; stir in carrots and prunes. Add applesauce mixture to flour mixture; stir just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).
  3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin-pan cups. (Muffin cups will be full.) Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Immediately remove muffins from pan. Serve warm, or cool on wire rack to serve later.