Spiced Butternut Squash Muffins

I had leftover butter squash filling when I made Butternut Squash Ravioli (which tasted wonderful, but were messy and labor-intensive!). So I used about 1 1/2 cups of the filling mixture in place of the butternut squash in this recipe.

Spiced Butternut Squash Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups butternut squash puree
1 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. In a small bowl, combine milk, egg, and melted butter until thoroughly mixed. Add squash puree. Fold squash mixture into dry ingredients. Do not overmix.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin. Each cup should be about 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.


Makes 12 muffins
Each muffin has: 121 calories, 2 g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 3 g protein

Strawberry Ricotta Muffins

Today was baking day! I got everything done that I had planned. I tried three new recipes and they all turned out great. In addition to these, I made Apple Oatmeal Bars and Spiced Butternut Squash Muffins.

I will definitely be making these again! This is a great way to use up the last little bit of ricotta cheese that you may have leftover from another recipe. I tweaked this.

Strawberry Ricotta Muffins

2 cups medium strawberries
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
10 Tbsp. melted butter, divided
2/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp lime juice (I used Key lime juice, which I had on hand)
2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp ground flax meal (optional)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place a wire cooling rack on a baking sheet. Wash, hull, and quarter the strawberries. Place strawberries on prepared rack. Bake until strawberries are partially dried. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Set oven to 400 degrees.

2. Brush the inside of a 12 mold muffin pan with 2 Tbsp melted butter. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together ricotta cheese, eggs, vanilla and remaining butter.

4. In a large bowl, add sugar and lime juice. Stir until all the sugar is moist. Mix in flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and flax. Gently but quickly fold wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not overmix. The batter will be thick and heavy. Stir in strawberries and spoon into muffin tin. Bake until tops of muffins are slightly browned, about 20-25 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and allow to cool on wire rack.


Makes 12 muffins
Per muffin: 158 calories, 3 g fat, 29 g carbohydrates, 6 g protein

Anytime Bran Muffins

As mentioned in this post, my mom has a great little muffin recipe book from Gooseberry Patch. During her visit this spring, we had marathon muffin making days to restock my freezer with baked goods. I'll be sharing our favorites! This is from the Country Friends Collection, Book #6 Muffins. I'm not sure if it's still available for purchase. (The wonderful folks at Gooseberry Patch left a comment on my Ten Little Muffins post and said that it's fine to share their recipes, provided I link back to them - thank you!)

For more great recipes and kitchen tips, visit the home of Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.


Anytime Bran Muffins

3 c. whole bran cereal
1 c. water, boiling
2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. raisins or chopped dates

In a separate bowl, pour boiling water over the bran cereal. Stir until blended and set aside to cool. In the meantime, stir together the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add oil, eggs, and buttermilk to the cooled bran mixture. Combine bran mixture with the dry ingredients and fold in raisins or dates. Pour batter into greased muffin cups until each cup is 2/3 full. Bake at 425 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes or until to springs back when touched lightly.

Oops. Forgot to mention why these are called "anytime" muffins. You can store the batter in the fridge up to 2 weeks and make muffins as you need them. Fresh muffins!

Yum Yum Brownie Muffins

Another great recipe from Hungry Girl! I will never make a regular brownie mix again! This makes a wonderful, cake-like brownie. Definitely Yum Yum!!

Yum Yum Brownie Muffins

(1 Muffin, or 3 minis - 181 calories, 3.5g fat, 37g carbs, 2g, fiber, 2g protein - 4 WW points)

This super-simple 2-ingredient recipe is a Weight Watchers Fave!

1 box devil’s food cake mix
1 can solid pack pumpkin (15 oz.)

Directions:
Mix the two ingredients together. Don't add anything else that may be mentioned on the box, such as eggs, oil, or water. The mixture will be very thick and you will be tempted to add in other things to make the batter smoother. DO NOT DO THIS AS IT WILL RUIN EVERYTHING! Place batter into muffin tins (or mini muffin tins) lined with paper, or sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 12 regular or 36 mini muffins.

Pineapple Banana Muffins

I love to have homemade goodies around for snacks. Other than being the primary care giver for our daughter, my favorite thing about staying home is being in the kitchen. So in my quest for healthier eating habits, I am adapting and experimenting with some of our favorite recipes. And I'm having fun!

There are a lot of substitutions you can make to "healthify" your favorite baked goods. In this recipe, I decreased the sugar, subbed whole wheat flour for half of the all-purpose flour, and subbed unsweetened applesauce for part of the oil. Hubby says this is the best muffin recipe yet!

This recipe made about 80 mini muffins for me. And my wonderful Hubby calculated the calories to be approximately 50 calories per mini muffin. And he says he doesn't like math!

And don't forget to visit Carol for more Saturday Stirrings recipes!



Pineapple Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
2 cups mashed ripe bananas

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray. (I don't like to use muffin liners; I feel that it wastes good muffiny-ness!)
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Mix eggs, oil, applesauce, and vanilla extract thoroughly. Stir in pineapple and bananas.
4. Fill each muffin about 3/4 full with batter.
5. Bake for 15-18 minutes, depending on your oven.

Four Foods on Friday - Baking

Thanks to Val for hosting this fun meme every week! Here are this week’s four questions. This week they’re about baking.

#1. When you need to serve desserts, do you buy them or make them? Because I have such a sweet tooth, I prefer to make my own desserts. I will buy cookies occasionally in I'm in a time crunch.


#2. When baking do you use butter, margarine or something else? I try to use what the recipe calls for. I like to use butter for the rich taste, but margarine gives a crispier texture.


#3. What meats or veggies do you cook in the oven? I love to roast veggies in the oven; I've even roasted spaghetti squash (one of my faves!). We eat a lot of baked chicken too.


#4. Share a recipe for anything that is cooked in an oven. This muffin recipe makes A LOT. I usually make 3 dozen regular size muffins and 4-5 dozen mini muffins with one batch. And I love all the variations. These are the carrot/raisin muffins.




Master Muffin Recipe - from my friends at The Duckabush Blog

INGREDIENTS
* 5 cups flour (use up to two cups whole wheat, crushed cereal, or packed rolled oats if desired)
*2 to 2 1/2 cups sugar (experiment with the amount - can also vary types of sugar used)
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 Tbs.(3 tsp) baking powder
* 2 cups buttermilk (you can use part yogurt for the milk)
* 1 c. oil or melted butter (or substitute 1/2 cup apple sauce for half the oil)
* 3 eggs


DIRECTIONS
Place dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir to blend. Place wet ingredients (oil, eggs, milk) in blender and blend well.

Make a well in dry ingredients in bowl, add wet mix from blender and pour into well. Stir gently to mix, add fruit and fold and stir in. Do not beat, batter should be a bit lumpy. Over stirring muffins makes them tough.


This will make 24 to 30 muffins depending on size of pans. Grease muffin pans or use muffin liners fill almost to the top and sprinkle with any of the following: sugar, cinn. sugar, chopped nuts and sugar, coconut, rolled oats and sugar etc.


Bake at 400 degrees for 20 min. Cool on racks. Freeze these in Ziplocs for quick breakfasts or easy snacks.



The wonderful thing about this Master Mix recipe is it comes with an amazing list of add in possibilities. Here are the muffin variations:


Apple cinnamon: Use 3 - 4 apples (just peel and cut in chunks and throw in blender with wet ingredients, don’t over process, or chop by hand), 2 tsp cinn. and 1 cup chopped pecans.


Apple raisin - same as above but add 1 cup raisins (plump first by covering with liquid and nuking for a couple minutes. Kathy likes to use part rolled oats with the apple muffins and sprinkle the tops with a little oatmeal and sugar. )


Carrot raisin - same as above but use 5 or 6 carrots chopped in blender with wet ingredients instead of apple. Add 1 cup chopped nuts if desired.

Carrot raisin pineapple - Same as above but add one large can crushed pineapple and reduce milk to 1 1/2 cups.

Strawberry - cut up 3 cups strawberries and mix in Strawberry/White Chocolate, same as above, but add 1 cup white choc pieces


Strawberry pecan - same but add 1 cup chopped pecans


Tollhouse - add 2 cup choc chips (1 12 oz bag), 1 cup chopped nuts, walnuts or pecans, use brown sugar and add 2 tsp vanilla.


Banana - Reduce milk to 1 cup - add 5 or 6 bananas to blender - add 2 tsp vanilla and 1 cup nuts

Banana/Strawberry 1- Same as above but fold into batter, 2 cups cut up strawberries.


Banana/Strawberry 2 - Add 1 cup strawberries to the blender with 4 or 5 bananas. Stir 2 cups of cut up strawberries into batter.


Banana/Strawberry 3 - Follow either banana or banana strawberry 1, but add 1 pkg strawberry jello to wet ingredients.


Banana Choc chip - same as above but add 2 cups mini chips and 1 cup nuts if desired.


Blueberry /Orange - Peel the orange skin off one orange in very thin pieces using a potato peeler and put in the blender with the other wet ingredients. Remove the white peel remaining on the orange and cut orange into 4 or 5 chunks. Pick out the seeds and put the chunks in the blender. add the remaining wet ingredients reducing milk to 1 3/4 cups, if you are using regular milk do not add lemon juice. Blend well. Proceed as directed stirring in 2 1/2 to 3 cups blueberries.


Cranberry Orange - Same as above (no blueberries) except add 1 1/2 dried cranberries (plumped in microwave by covering with liquid and nuking for a couple minutes). Can also add 1 cup chopped nuts


Orange Pineapple - Same as above (no blueberries) but add 1 large can of crushed pineapple and reduce milk to 1 1/2 cups.


Hawaiian - Same as above but add 1 cup coconut - sprinkle tops with a little coconut.


Peanut Butter and Jelly - This is for the kids, into blender container put milk, 1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky, you can add extra chopped peanuts if you like) and only 1/3 cup oil. Use 4 eggs and mix as usual. Fill muffin tins 1/2 full and put 1 tsp jam or jelly in center of each cup. Fill with batter almost to top and bake as usual. Chopped peanuts sprinkled on top is a nice touch.