Category Archives: Get Healthy

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins
The “skinnier” version

Yesterday, I posted about my very high calorie, chocolate chip muffin recipe.  I also posted some strategies for making any recipe healthier.  And promised a before and after comparison of my chocolate chip muffins.  (The photo above is the new, “skinnier” recipe)

My original chocolate chip muffin Ingredients:

2 cups flour (800 calories)
1/3 cup brown sugar (240 calories)
1/3 cup sugar (255 calories)
2 tsp baking powder (no calories)
½ tsp salt (no calories)
¾  cup 2% milk (98 calories)
½ cup butter,melted (814 calories)
2 eggs (140 calories)
1 tsp vanilla (no calories)
1 package (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips (1,610 calories)

Yield: 15 muffins;
Nutritional info per muffin: 264 calories; 33 g carbs; 13 g fat

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The “skinnier” recipe:

2 cups white whole wheat flour (880 calories)
1/4 cup brown sugar (180 calories)
¼ cup sugar (194 calories)
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup 1% milk (55 calories)
¼ cup water
1/4 cup butter, melted (407 calories)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (35 calories)
2 eggs, lightly beaten (140 calories)
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips (645 calories)

What to do:

1. Combine dry ingredients (flour, sugars, baking powder, salt).  Stir until combined.
2. In a small bowl, combine wet ingredients (milk, water, melted butter, unsweetened applesauce, 2 eggs, vanilla).
3. Make a hole in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet.  Stir, only until wet.  Do not over mix.
4. Fold in chocolate chips (or blueberries, apple pieces, strawberries, etc.)

Yield: 18 muffins;

Nutritional info per FULL-SIZED muffin: 141 calories; 21 g carbs; 7 g

Just by making these simple changes, you reduce the calories by nearly 50%.

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(For more recipes, check out Tasty Tuesday, Weekend Potluck, Feasting in Fellowship, and Gooseberry Patch)

Sometimes, you have a great recipe, that you LOVE…but it just has too many calories!  For me, the culprit was chocolate chip muffins.  Delicious, but 267 calories each!  So, I wanted to “skinny up” my recipe.  I decided to share these strategies in case anyone else was interested.  These tips are geared mostly toward baked goods (sweets).

Flour:  You may not actually lessen calories here, but choosing 100% white whole wheat flour instead of white flour does make it healthier.  The whole wheat gives you “better” calories. When using regular whole wheat flour, I sub ½ whole wheat and ½ unbleached white all-purpose flour.  However, I have found that white whole wheat works well for baking, so I substitute it completely for regular white flour.  You can also change out part of the flour with quick oats to save calories and carbs, although this will obviously change the texture.

Sugars:  Generally speaking, you can reduce the sugar by a small amount in most recipes.  I like to reduce it by a bit at a time to find the “magic” spot (usually starting with around 20-25% less sugar).  If you don’t mind the “diet taste” you can also substitute stevia, splenda, or other low-calorie sweeteners.

Milk:  In many recipes, you can actually substitute water for the entirety of the milk.  If you’re concerned about taste or texture, start slowly, replacing half the milk with water at first.

Butter:  In most baking recipes, you can substitute unsweetened applesauce for the butter/oil.  However, it does change the texture a bit, so again, I would recommend to start with a small substitution (start by replacing 25%-50% of the butter/oil), then work your way up to your magic number.

Eggs: There are several ways to reduce/substitute eggs in recipes.  First, you can sometimes simply use less eggs with minimal impact on taste.  (For example if a recipe calls for 2, sometimes you can get by with only 1.  You might even search for other recipes to see if there are similar recipes with less eggs).  You can also use egg whites instead of eggs, or a combination (such as 1 egg + 2 egg whites in exchange for 2 eggs).  Finally, you can substitute milled flax seed for eggs (1 tbsp. flax seed + 3 Tbsp Water equals 1 egg), with little effect on taste and texture. If a recipe calls for only 1 egg, I generally leave it as is.

Baking Chips:  Baking chips (chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, etc.) make up the bulk of calories found in most recipes containing them.  You can almost always reduce the amount of baking chips, with little negative affect on taste.  For my chocolate chip muffin recipe in particular, each muffin had over 100 calories of chocolate chips!  So, I decided to half the amount of chocolate chips.  There are still plenty, and they taste great.  You can also use “mini” chips, to help spread them out, while still using less.

Calorie-Free Flavorings: Using flavor additions such as extracts (vanilla, almond, etc.), and spices (like cinnamon) can add flavor, and draw out the natural sweetness without adding extra calories.

Yield:  Make more, smaller servings.  For my muffin recipe, I made each muffin a little smaller (but still a full sized muffin), and increased the yield from 15 to 18 servings, with a very small impact on the overall size of the muffin.

Another option is to make them half the size and double the amount (mini-muffins/ half-sized cookies, etc.).  This is a great “mental” thing as well.  Smaller sizes generally encourage you to eat less.  For example, I might eat 3 full-sized muffins (Yes, I know…please no “you’re a pig” comments!)…whereas I might eat 4-5 of the smaller ones (which would be the equivelant of 2-2.5 large ones instead of 3).

Come back tomorrow, where I will be sharing my before and after Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe!