Healthified Carrot and Apple Muffins

I haven’t shared a ton of baking recipes recently.  Not much since Christmas anyway.  I think the last two baked goods I wrote about here were these plum squares and these cinnamon pumpkin rolls (way back in the beginning of December!).  This is partly because I haven’t been baking a ton (much to my coworkers’ chagrin), and partly because I’ve been trying to focus on healthy recipes of the sort you might be inspired to whip up for dinner on a weeknight.  Come to think of it, I was also out of town for 11 days in February, including most of the weekend days, which certainly cut into time I might otherwise have spent enabling my cookie habit.  But I truly love to bake – particularly on a sunny weekend morning like this past Sunday – and so I am here with these healthy carrot and apple muffins from Anja’s Food 4 Thought.

If you’re into healthy but interesting food and you haven’t checked out Anja’s blog, I highly recommend it.  Whenever I visit, I find myself bookmarking another handful of recipes to try – like broccoli, almond and tahini salad, quinoa-granola bars, or  zucchini-chickpea-feta fritters.  Maybe we just like the same foods, but I think almost everything she posts sounds totally delicious and intriguing – and there are a lot of foods out there that don’t hold a ton of appeal for me.  Anyway, check it out.

These muffins, which have only 230 calories per pop with a good amount of vitamins (and decent protein and fiber), surprised me with their moist, light, sweet flavor.  I mean, I’ve never made healthy muffins that really tasted good before.  Like, think the opposite of bran muffins.  (Not a big fan of bran).  These are full of good-for-you ingredients, like apples, carrots, dried fruit, greek yogurt, sesame seeds, and oats, and use olive oil and maple syrup to replace the more typical butter and sugar.   It’s a little bit time consuming to prepare all the parts, but I think they would just be good without the nutty-crumble topping, if you’re feeling lazy.  One of these muffins and a cafe au lait was an excellent, and almost guilt-free start to my week.

Carrot and Apple Muffins

Makes 15 standard muffins.  Adapted from Anja’s Food 4 Thought.

For the muffins:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. maple syrup
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 6 oz. greek yogurt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and grated
• 2 medium apples, peeled and grated
• 1/2 c. dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries)
• 1/2 c. quick cooking oats
• 2 c. whole wheat flour (I subbed AP with fine results)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt