Battle of the Healthy Muffins

I think most of us are used to cake like muffins, and I definitely love those ones but I'm on a search for healthy and tasty muffin recipes. (I seem to be on a search for a lot of things recently (perfect red sauce, best peanut butter cookies, really good tofu marinades). Why the healthy muffin search? It's a quick, easy, hopefully filling, and potentially healthy snack. So far there are three contenders: honey banana, oatmeal raisin, and pumpkin banana.

Honey Banana | Oatmeal Raisin | Pumpkin Banana

The honey banana were the first ones that I made and they were okay. Well they tasted good for a healthy muffin, but for a muffin in general just okay. Plus the tops of the muffins became all wet the next day, which is a true muffin pet peeve of mine. I wonder if I had used all oil instead of half oil and half applesauce if the tops would've been wet. I'm guessing they would've been because of all the bananas. I also added some nuts to the honey banana muffins. The oatmeal raisin ones were kind of bland, and drier than the honey banana. I wouldn't bother making these again but I like the idea of an oatmeal raisin muffin. The description said "oatmeal raisin cookie meets muffin", so I was really excited about tasting them. Unfortunately they do not taste as awesome as an oatmeal cookie.

Then we have the muffin that currently reigns supreme (yes I think that's stuck in my head from Iron Chef), the superb pumpkin banana muffins! I doubt I would have thought of putting pumpkin and banana together but it worked well. You don't taste the pumpkin too much (for those people that are pumpkin haters) - it's more about the pumpkin pie spices. These muffins are moist and full of flavour, and the top of the muffin doesn't get wet! There is however 2 cups of sugar in them which doesn't seem healthy to me, but it does make 30 muffins. You're getting about 3.2 teaspoons of sugar in each muffin (that actually does seem high, but I don't know). There's no added fat (oil, butter), and lots of good things (whole wheat flour, oat bran, walnuts). The one thing I forgot to do was add some ground flax to the batter.

For now I will hang on to the honey banana muffin recipe, but if I find better healthy muffins I wouldn't be sad to discard it. The pumpkin banana muffin recipe I will keep and make again. I'll try to add less sugar next time and see how they turn out. And I will keep searching for other healthy muffin recipes so I can have at least a few solid ones in my repertoire.

Healthy Pumpkin Banana Muffins
(Adapted from Recipezaar)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup oat bran
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup applesauce
15 ounces canned pumpkin
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Grease or line muffin tins with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk flours, bran, oats, baking powder, spices, baking soda and salt.
4. Combine remaining ingredients (except nuts) in a large mixing bowl; beat until smooth.
5. Gradually beat in flour mixture.
6. Beat just until combined.
7. Spoon into prepared pans or tins (fill cups until just about full).
8. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out clean.
9. Remove muffins from pan and cool on wire rack as soon as they come out of the oven.