Apple, Zucchini, Banana Low Fat Sugar Free Muffins

Did you know that I like to make low fat muffins?  It's true.  I do.  

Once again, trying to scrape out the leftover ingredients from the fridge.  Aren't you proud of me?  I haven't been to the groceries in 3 days!  That's rare.  

These muffins seems like they belong in the Fall.  Some pumpkin would have been nice.

I think these were a success based on my family finishing the whole batch by 6 pm.  I might even say that these are my most successful batch of low fat sugar-free muffins to date.  

Low fat sugar free muffins are tricky to bake.  They take forever because you have to replace the moisture that oil and butter would typically give with ingredients like apples or bananas which will slowly melt, lending moisture as they bake.  The problem is that the longer they bake the more liquid-y the alternative moisture becomes and so they don't firm up the way a typical muffin might.  The way to get around this is to bake for a long time until some sort of baking threshold is reached and the fruit begins to dry out.  Low fat muffins probably take about 45 minutes to bake.  These took about a hour.  

The key in this recipe was the diced apples.  It's important that the apples are sizable cubed rather than crushed.  It's just nice to bite into a nice chunk of apple.  The same goes for the mashed bananas.  Sizable.  

Ingredients

2 bananas

1 3/4 cup finely grated zucchini

1 apple, diced

1 cup craisins (or raisins)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup egg beaters or 1 egg

1/2 cup splenda

1/2 brown sugar substitute (or just another 1/2 cup of splenda)

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 heaping cup of whole wheat flour

(optional: 1 cup chopped walnuts or chocolate chips)

1. preheat oven to 350

2. combine the two types of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside

3. in a large mixing bowl combine egg beaters, apple sauce, yogurt, vanilla extract and sugars

4. gently fold in about 1/2 of the flour mixture into the egg/yogurt/applesauce mixture and set aside

5. in a large bowl mash the bananas roughly and then add the diced apples

6. add the cinnamon and nutmeg to the apple banana mixture

7. add the apple/banana mixture, grated zucchini, and craisins into the remaining 1/2 of the flour mixture until well coated.  you can also add the walnuts and/or chocolate chips at this point

8. fold in the apple/banana/zucchini/craisin mixture into the egg/applesauce/yogurt/flour mixture

9. either line 15 muffin tins or spray them with baking spray (I tend to think low fat muffins do better with baking spray because the liners tend to stick to the muffins since there are no oils)

10. place a heaping ice cream scoop of batter into each muffin tin

11. bake for about 45 minutes to a hour

12. let sit for about 10 minutes and then unmold from muffin tins