Ingredients
1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
⅓ cup vegetable oil
⅓ cup nonfat or 1% milk
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Directions
- Wash hands with soap and water.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease the bottom of 12 muffin cups.
- In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.
- In a medium bowl, mix the oil, egg, milk and applesauce until smooth.
- Stir the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture until just moistened. Lightly stir in the blueberries.
- Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full.
- Bake about 20 minutes, or until the muffin tops are golden brown. A toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin should come out moist but without batter.
Notes
- To avoid rancid whole wheat flour, store it in a container or bag that keeps the air sealed out. Keep in a cool dark area for up to 3 months or in the freezer for up to 6 months. Buy amounts that you can use within those lengths of time.
- A gravy ladle or large liquid measuring cup are great tools for pouring muffin batter into tins.
Variations:
- To use sweetened applesauce, remove about 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar from the measured amount.
- To bake as a bread, use a greased 8- or 9-inch bread pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes.
- No whole-wheat flour? Replace with all-purpose flour.
- Replace blueberries with another fruit. Try diced apples with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, fresh or frozen cranberries with 1 1/2 teaspoon orange zest, or diced bananas.
Comment
These were even better than we expected (all whole grain flour was yummy and you couldn't tell at all that there was applesauce in them). Note for us the batter was thicker than you would expect a muffin batter to be (the only variation on the recipe we did was use buttermilk versus regular milk) but they turned out as perfectly yummy, fluffy muffins.
A group of us sampled this recipe and really liked it but we would like to have a note added about using sweetened applesauce. How much should the sugar be reduced when using sweetened applesauce? That is what normally gets donated at the food pantries so it would be nice to have that as an added note.
To use sweetened applesauce instead of unsweetened, measure the sugar then remove about 1 1/2 teaspoons of the sugar. This is about the amount of sugar in 1/2 cup of applesauce. We added it to the notes above.
Food Hero Team
I made these for our pantry project last month. When I returned this month with a different recipe, people were still talking about how much they liked these muffins!
Blueberries can get expensive this time of year. I have found that diced apple is a nice substitute for the blueberries; I like to add a little cinnamon as well.
After making this recipe many times with both adults and youth as well as in my own home, I have come to see this recipe as an excellent base muffin recipe. I might even suggest renaming the recipe:) Diced fresh apple (add cinnamon), diced peaches, fresh cranberries (add orange zest) and any dried fruit work well in this recipe; the possibilities are endless. I also routinely reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup with no problems. No matter what version is made, these muffins are gobbled up.
Not sure whose kid approved these but they get 2 thumbs down from my 4 year old who says they are too sweet.
How wonderful that your child has not developed a taste for sweetness. You can easily reduce the sugar in this recipe to 1/2 cup. And double check that the applesauce and blueberries don't have added sugar. Further reduction may cause texture changes in the muffin. The recipe has been tasted by over 1848 kids and 83% "Liked!" the taste.
The Food Hero Team,
We made these to sample at a food pantry night and everyone commented about how good they were!
I recommend keeping the added fruit to about 1 cup. Using 2 cups of fruit tends to make the muffins a bit soggy due to the added moisture. The apple cinnamon and banana recipe variations are the most popular in my home and with community groups.
Hi my name is Sydney, I made these muffins in the video above with my cousin. They were fun and easy to make. Everybody loved them! I actually used huckleberries because I did not have blueberries and they turned out great!