Oatmeal-Raisin Muffins (A work in progress...)

You know when you buy something at the grocery store planning to find a recipe and you end up using every ingredient under the sun except what you bought? That's what's going on with some dried organic fruit I picked up at Trader Joe's recently. Luckily it won't go bad in this case, though. I was looking up muffin recipes to try my dried fruit in and ended up making Oatmeal Rasin muffins instead.

The muffins turned out tasting fine, but almost rubbery, and they they were sticking to the paper a bit. Definitely NOT a win. I used applesauce as an oil substitute, and I'm wondering how well using 1/2 apple sauce and 1/2 oil would work, instead of just apple sauce. I like the idea of these being healthier though, so I'd prefer not to use all oil. This is my first time substituting apple sauce for oil, which in my sometimes boring life, is pretty damn exciting, even if they didn't turn out all that great.

This wesite suggests trying 1/2 and 12 to start, if you aren't used to the apple sauce substitute. I've heard so many people say that you can't tell the difference that I didn't even think to do the 1/2 and 1/2 combo. What I now know, is that you can tell the difference and a 1/2 and 1/2 combo is something I want to try.

I made a couple alterations to this recipe; click here for the original. (I made it healthier, and without 100% apple sauce substitute these would work probably pretty well.)

Ingredients

1 Cup soy milk
1 Cup quick cooking oats
1 egg
1/4 Cup apple sauce (Try 1/2 oil, 1/2 apple sauce or all oil instead)
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/4 Cup light brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 Cup raisins


Preheat oven to 425 and prepare your muffin pan.

Combine oats and milk in a small bowl, and set aside. Let sit for 15 minutes.

In your mixer bowl, blend egg and apple sauce together well. Then add oatmeal and mix.

In a seperate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix in the brown sugar with a fork until thoroughly combined. The original recipe called to sift the sugar, but I substitued brown which I was afraid might be a bit thick and/or sticky for a sifter.


Make an angry face with raisins (or don't, this step is optional).

Using the lowest speed on your mixer, blend the dry ingredients into the egg and applesauce until just combined. Add raisins.

Add batter to the muffin cups, about 2/3 full. (I got 23 muffins.)

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in the muffin pan for 3-5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling. These taste goodwith a little butter while they're still warm! (You know, since we made them healthier we can slather them with butter, right? Right.)

Please share your tips and experiences on making recipes healthier! I want to start paying more attention to that, and making substitutions when I can. (Not always of course... or even most of the time for that matter!) Have you tried the applesauce substitute? How did it turn out?