Zucchini Muffins: My Experiment!

I have been researching like crazy how to substitute "healthy" ingredients into my foods. Some recipes I see are just crazy- black bean brownies? cookies without any flour, eggs, butter, or sugar? And what the heck is agave nectar? But I have also been impressed that I can cut out the butter or sugar in my recipes with simple substitutions like apple sauce and honey!

So I've made these muffins before - they are AMAZING. Moist, delicate, the zucchini gives them some depth while the lemon zest and cinnamon give a lightness of flavor. So I decided this was a good and simple recipe to try to make healthy! (Also, we just got a zucchini about 2 feet long from my sister. Yay for zucchini brownies, oatmeal cookies, muffins--anything not to use the zucchini for its real purpose!)

(photo by Eat Cake for Dinner)

When I told Shenli about my idea, he said "Wow that's great! Because I don't like apple sauce, you don't like honey, and we both hate zucchini!" Okay, so in theory, none of these ingredients are really loved at our house. But somehow, put together, they are all AMAZING! (Shenli still didn't like the muffins. But what can I say- I should have dipped them in chocolate if I really wanted his attention.)

I was afraid to substitute all the sugar for honey, because I didn't know how the batter would behave. It turned out well! Here is my (my very first!) recipe below. I had to add some more oatmeal to make the batter thicker, so it's not quite a perfect halving of the original recipe.

Healthy Oatmeal Zucchini Muffins
(adapted from Eat Cake for Dinner)

1 cup Flour (next time I might try some whole wheat in there!)

3/4 cup Oatmeal

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 egg

1/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 tsp. vanilla

zest from 1/2-1 lemon

1 1/2 c. grated un-peeled zucchini

Whisk together, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside.  In a separate bowl, stir together honey, sugar, egg, and apple sauce.  Add vanilla, lemon zest, and shredded zucchini. Mix together the dry and wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Add more oatmeal or flour if needed until batter becomes pretty thick.  Spray mini muffin pan with cooking spray (or use melted butter). Drop spoonfuls of batter into each muffin cup and fill to the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-16 minutes (the original recipe says 21-23 minutes for regular muffins if you want that instead).  Muffins will look very shiny on the top, but will still be done as long as the top is no longer doughy.

Enjoy! I looked it up online and I believe they are about 70 calories apiece, and my recipe made 21 mini muffins. They are slightly gummy for muffins- I think it might be the honey or the apple sauce. But they are delicious and filling and my first recipe adaptation was a success! I don't know if I'm quite up for black bean brownies yet, but the apple sauce instead of butter idea is my new favorite friend!