Healthy Blueberry Almond Muffins

Friday I spent the day with Savannah, my neighbor’s daughter. We had plans to go blueberry picking, so in the morning we sat down and looked online for some blueberry recipes to make when we got home. We picked out 4 and made our shopping list. I’m actually impressed we got through 3 of them! She loves cooking and baking with me and learning, so it makes it so fun for me too! We made these delicious muffins, some amazing blueberry gelato (perhaps not so healthy), and blueberry brownies that were surprisingly yummy and fairly healthy too.

This recipe is from the blog, Blogging Over Thyme, which was inspired by a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I doubled her recipe (I knew I wasn’t going to go to all the work just to make 9 muffins!). They do contain butter and sugar, so maybe not exactly a ‘health’ food, but I would say it’s a healthier alternative when it comes to muffins.

Healthy Blueberry Almond Muffins

Makes 18 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups non fat greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 6 TB unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• zest of 2 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• sliced almonds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin pans or put paper muffin liners in pan.
2. Using mixer, beat together apple sauce, butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Proceed to mix in egg, yogurt, and zest until mixed thoroughly.
3. In separate bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Fold in half of the flour mixture until it comes together. Add in additional half and gently fold into batter. It will be very thick and dough like.
5. Add in fresh blueberries and fold gently.
6. Fill muffin cups about 7/8 full. Sprinkle sliced almonds onto each muffin.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes clean. Cool on rack.

Nutrition:

about 170 calories and 5 grams protein/muffin