Apparently I Am The Muffin Man

Dr. Murray's mother is visiting us from San Francisco.  I'm supposed to call her "Gaga"...I don't think I can do this.  I will just call her Dr. Murray's mother.  Well, Dr. Murray's mother is a wonderfully sweet lady.  Recently she's had a few health problems and now she cannot eat things with high fat content.  Very unfortunate.  

For her arrival I made some low-fat sugar free muffins.  And when I say "some", what I mean is  a ton.  I think I made nearly 50 muffins, which is ridiculous and I don't even know why I did that.  Clearly an 88 pound elderly woman is not going to eat 50 muffins.  

I think low fat sugar free muffins are exciting.  It's like a competition with myself to see how much fat I can remove from a muffins while maintaining moisture and taste.  

I made a chocolate banana muffin, which I was actually pretty pleased with, except I didn't fill up the muffin tins enough and they sort of ended up being mini muffins.

I also made blueberry oatmeal muffins.  I've made these before.  Here is the recipe. 

This is the recipe for the Low Fat Sugar Free Chocolate Banana Muffins (approx. 75 calories per muffin):

Ingredients:

7 ounces sugar free chocolate

1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1/2 cup plain non fat yogurt

3 bananas

1 cup splenda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup egg beaters 

1. preheat oven to 350

2. in a double broiler melt the chocolate and then add 1/4 cup of applesauce to the melted chocolate and whisk 

3. peel the bananas and sprinkle them with the cinnamon and smash, not too finely because you want there to be chunks of banana in the muffins

4. in a medium mixing bowl combine the egg beaters, remaining applesauce, and yogurt

5. in a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder

6. make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the yogurt applesauce mixture, blend until just combined

7. fold in the melted chocolate

8. gently fold in the smashed bananas

9. fill up approximately 12 lined muffin tins with the batter (about 3/4 full)

10. let bake for about 15 minuted and then insert a banana chip into the center of each muffin

11. continue to bake for another 10 to 15 minutes 

note* low fat muffins take longer to bake and so the common clean toothpick method is actually not a reliable method of determining whether your muffin is done.  You may have to sacrifice a muffin and split one open to verify that it is completely cooked through.