As the days get shorter and the air gets colder, but Christmas still seems infuriatingly far away, it’s very easy to turn to snacking as a way to cheer yourself up after a long day on campus (where some lecture theatres still have the air conditioning on – university seems to be determined not to let us be lulled to sleep by any potential warmth). So here’s a quick and easy recipe for healthy apple and banana muffins that will not only give you something to look forward to when you come home, but won’t give you that guilty feeling that snacking on pick ‘n’ mix from the S.U. shop does. It doesn’t have any butter and uses milk instead, basically making it fat free – and therefore guilt free!
Ingredients
250g self raising flour (substitute this for wholemeal self-raising flour to make this recipe even healthier!)
100g caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
340ml skimmed milk
2 mashed bananas
2 green apples (Granny Smith or that type), peeled and grated
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Fill a muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
- Sieve the flour into a bowl – this aerates it to give you the fluffiest muffins.
- Stir the rest of the dry ingredients in together – the sugar, salt, and teaspoon of cinnamon.
- Make a little dip in the middle and add the wet ingredients – the milk, bananas, and grated apples. Stir as little as possible – lumps are your friend until all the ingredients are just combined, or the muffins may become a little too dense.
- Spoon the mixture into the cases.
- Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, until the muffins are golden on top. As soon as you can take them out of the tin place them onto a cooling rack otherwise you risk a soggy bottom!
- If you would like to be a bit more decadent with your muffin, mix a tablespoon of cinnamon with a tablespoon of caster sugar and sprinkle it over the tops of the muffins while they are still warm, it should melt in to provide a sweeter, crunchy top.
And it’s as easy as that. You can even eat these muffins for a guilt free sweet breakfast, as they contain much less sugar than most sweetened breakfast cereals do. I hope you enjoy making your healthy muffins – you just need to remember to hide them from your housemates, unless you are feeling particularly generous!