applesauce muffins

My main reasons for eating? It tastes good! And it's healthy! That is to say, it can be healthy when I make good choices. Taste is most important for me, though. And you?

But I'm interested in whole grain baking because it is good for me and so I've been learning a lot about it lately. You can expect to read more about baking with whole wheat flour and other healthy stuff over the next few months.

But is whole grain baking tasty? If not, why bother? May I present Exhibit A, these applesauce muffins.

Amazingly, these little beauties contain only whole wheat flour. And they were so more-ish that they were gobbled up by me and a few others who were enjoying a night of food together.

One problem with baking with whole wheat flour is that the resulting cake, muffin, cookie, or bread can be very dry or hard. The way to fix this is to add some extra liquid. In this recipe I added 2 T orange juice. You could also use more milk, or water, but orange juice takes the edge off the whole wheat taste and makes it more palatable to friends who don't like whole wheat for its own sake. The orange juice was unnoticeable in the muffins, but made a big difference.

No one guessed that these muffins were made with 100% whole wheat flour. They were moist, tasty, and healthy (there's not much sugar, either).

Applesauce Muffins
adapted from a bread recipe at Taste of Home
makes 2 dozen small muffins

for the muffins:
2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c sugar
1 t cinnamon
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t nutmeg
2 egg whites
1 egg
1 1/2 c (375 ml or 450 g) applesauce
1/4 c vegetable oil
3 T milk
2 T orange juice

for the topping:
2 T brown sugar
1/4 c oatmeal
1/2 t cinnamon

Mix the muffin dry ingredients in a large bowl: the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg.
Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl: the egg whites, egg, applesauce, oil, milk, and orange juice.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir only until combined.
Spoon into muffin tins.
Mix the topping ingredients and then sprinkle over the muffins with a spoon.
Bake at 375 F (180 C) for 15-20 minutes, until a tester comes out of the muffins clean.

I've just started reading Peter Reinhart's Wholegrain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor and so you can expect to see more whole grain goodies posted here soon. 100% whole wheat sandwich bread is first on my list, along with whole wheat cinnamon buns. What would you like to learn about whole grains or whole grain baking?