Jacks Real Good Low FatLow Sugar Almost Diet Semi Healthy Whole Wheat Muffins Recipe

How to make it

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• Cream the butter, brown sugar, and Splenda.
• Add the eggs. Add the sour cream. Add the apple sauce. Add the milk. Beat this stuff with the paddle until smooth and foamy.
• Add the zest LAST, beat till mixed well.
• Add the dry stuff just to mix. You may have to adjust the flour up, or add liquid. Batter consistency is important to the raise. You need a semi lumpy thickish batter here.
• {For Cooking For Engineers, that's a viscosity of about 95,500 to 115,000 cP. Keep in mind that this batter is a mostly non-Newtonian fluid, with a smallish Reynolds number but is also ~ thixotropic, so the cP number is the best I can do. And that's at "room temp".}
• For the highly technical, that's thicker than cold catsup, but thinner than warm peanut butter.
• Semi lumpy batter is a good thing. DO NOT BEAT or OVERMIX!!! That develops the gluten to the point of toughness. We are not looking for muffin jerky here.
• Fold in the apples.
• Fill the paper lined muffin cups about 80~90% full.
• Sprinkle a little white or brown sugar and a pinch or two of instant oats on the top of the muffins.
• It's important to let the muffins rest for 20 minutes, then bake at 400 F bake for 18 to 20 minutes.
• After 18 to 20 minutes, turn on the broiler to brown the tops. Watch constantly till they are as brown as you want. They don't get real brown during the baking process because there's not much sugar in them.
• This will make about 14 muffins. A dozen for the table, with 2 left over for taste testing by the "Chef de Cuisine".
• Outcomes
• These were GREAT!
• Now, they stuck to the paper muffin cups a little, cause there's not much oil in the recipe. Next time I'll spray the paper, or maybe just spray the muffin pan instead of using the paper.
• The next test will be to separate the eggs, beat the whites till soft peaks, then "fold" them into the batter.
• It's fall, so the seasonal apples were great, but I'll try some other fruit next batch. Pomegranate? Honey Dew? Cranberries? Blueberries? In the late summer maybe peaches or nectarines?
• Tested Variations
• A.
• 1. I sprayed the paper muffin cups with non-stick. This worked well. The muffins didn't stick much.
• 2. In search of a lighter bran type muffin, I really beat the heck out of the liquid stuff, until it was light, fluffy, and foamy.
• 3. Also for lighter muffins, I separated the egg whites, beat them to stiff peaks, then folded them into the batter AFTER I added the cranberries.
• 4. I used 1 2/3 cups of cranberries. I cut them in half and sprinkled them with 1 TBSP of sugar and set them aside for an hour. If you like a lot of berries, I think you could go to 2 ~ 2 1/2 cups without screwing anything up.
• 5. Resting time, baking time, and baking temperature changes were required.
• Because of the lighter batter density as a result of the beating of the liquids and the folded egg whites, this recipe made 18 muffins instead of 14!
• It is very important to let this batter rest in the muffin cups for 30 minutes prior to baking. Also, because of the lighter density, (more air bubbles = slower heat transfer) longer cooking time was required, and at a lower temperature. You'll need to go the full 18 to 20 minutes, but at 350 F instead of 400 F. The lower temperature makes for a better raise. Do not trust the old clean toothpick test for doneness! You'll still need to brown the tops under the broiler after the cooking time. Of course, ovens vary so blah, blah, blah........
• *Nutritional Information for the basic muffin. (14, with apples)
• This is sort of an approximation, but I'll bet it's real close.
• Per each Muffin @ 14 per batch.
• Fat.............3.8g (analytical)
• Fiber..........1.73g (semi empirical)
• Carbs.........6.57g (analytical)
• Calories....56.42 (empirical, from bomb calorimeter)
• For those of you on W. W., WW Points= less than 2