Lower-calorie blueberry muffins!

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins):

1/4 cup applesauce

3/4 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup nonfat sour cream

1 cup fresh blueberries 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 degrees Celsius.

2. Line muffin pan with muffin liner thingies, or grease it.

3. Combine dry ingredients; combine wet ingredients; add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. :) Gently fold in blueberries last.

4. Spoon batter into lined/greased muffin pan. Should be about 3/4 full.

5. Place pan into preheated oven; bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Muffins should spring back when touched. Mine didn't come out looking golden-brown (a little whiter than usual, but they were done), so be sure to poke 'em and see!

These would be yummy heated up with cream cheese on 'em, or butter, or jam.....or plain.....hee-hee. I was debating whether or not to use Splenda, but I wanted to save my Splenda for when I really needed it, so if anyone tries it with Splenda, let me know how they turn out. :) I used a little less sugar than the recipe called for. Oh, and some nutrient information might be on the low side...computer estimate. Enjoy! Liz

Nutrition facts (serving = 1 muffin):

Calories 130

Calories from Fat 9  

Total Fat 1g (2 %)

 Saturated Fat 0.3g (1 %)

Cholesterol 35mg (12 %)

Sodium 80mg (3 %)

Potassium 84mg (2 %)

Total Carbohydrates 26.9g (9 %)

Dietary Fiber 0.7g (3 %)

Protein 3.5g (7 %) 

Sugars 14.2g 

Vitamin A 1 %

Vitamin C 3 %

Calcium 5 %

Iron 8 %

Thiamin 11 %  

Niacin 8 %  

Vitamin B6 1 %  

Magnesium 2 %  

Folate 14 %

    Wow! I'll have to try this for sure!

Do you think I could take yogurt instead of sour cream?

i'm not much of a low cal baker when it comes to cooking at my house. my family isn't as into it as me so we don't keep all the substitutions and such around all the time. i did, however, find some fat free blueberry muffins at walmart. i find them not only at the bakery but on the cart that has things that are reduced b/c they are about to expire. that cart is awesome.... haha. anyway, it's just an FYI b/c they are 120/muffin. they also have banana! yummmmmm!!

Haha awesome kellbell! I loooove baking, and I would totally buy those muffins but I'm trying to keep my sodium down, and what I really liked about these muffins was the 80 mg of sodium! Yay.

Hmmmm, zimtsticker, interesting proposition. Sounds like it would work. Try it! Any particular reason why?

yeah, cause I wouldn't know where to find nonfat sour cream. I'm not quite sure if there's nonfat plain yogurt on the market over here, but we sure got low fat stuff so I'd take that. I'll just give it a try and tell you if it worked ;)

very true... the banana muffins are 260mg sodium i think.... 80 is A LOT better!!!

Hmm! I found nonfat sour cream in my grocery store, but I'm not sure where you are. :)

Yeah. The sodium on processed foods'll get you. Tsk tsk.

Liz

I'm in Germany, Liz :)

How much would the calories decrease if i used splenda instead of sugar?

Let's see. This recipe calls for 3/4 cup of sugar, right? There's 581 calories in 3/4 cup of sugar.

By using Splenda, you would eliminate the 581 calories in the recipe. If you make 12 muffins, that means there are 48.416 less calories per muffin. (581 divided by 12.)

130 minus 48 = 82 calories per muffin. :)

That is, assuming, your body absorbs none of the Splenda. I usually stick to Splenda for coffee or iced tea, but that's about it. I'm kind of wary of it. Enjoy!

What is applesauce?  sauce made from apples I'm guessing.. but I've never seen it here. is there any substitute for that, or is it already substituting something else?

I've been looking for low cal muffins though, will give it a go if I can find the applesauce

Oh! Yeah, it's this sweet apple-based..well..sauce...haha. It's yummy, especially when you're a kid.

The thing about applesauce is a lot of people use it as a substitute for oil in a lot of baking recipes, to eliminate calories and fat. They also have reduced-sugar applesauce, at least, where I am. :)

So...hmm. I have to think about this one. I don't think you want to put oil back in. :P But. That would be the possibility, although it would increase calories.

*ponders* I shall put on my thinking cap!

Liz

Ah-HA! If all else fails, annah, here's a quick, easy recipe for applesauce. :) Instead of white sugar, you can use sugar substitute, if you prefer. Or just not as much sugar. It's to your taste!

http://sidedish.allrecipes.com/az/pplsc.asp

I read if you want to use splenda to replace the sugar that you should not use all Splenda.  Try 1/2 sugar & 1/2 Splenda.

I made these the other day... they were delicious! There are only a couple left now after my parents plowed through most of them (I've had three, haha). I used lowfat yogurt instead of sour cream, and next time I might try using Splenda.

I actually had to make the last muffin sans blueberries because I ran out, but that was most probably just me overusing them in the first place. In any case, it still tasted good!

kateonfire, I'm glad you liked them! And I'm flattered that you took interest in the recipe. :) Tell me how they are with Splenda (if I don't beat you to it). Was the yogurt good? That's another thing I should try. Did you use plain or vanilla...?

Liz :D

Lizzle, I went to the supermarket last night hunted high and low and finally found applesause with no added sugar!  However, I couldn't find fresh blueberries, (winter here so probably none around) so I bought frozen raspberries instead and made some last night, cut the sugar to 1/2 a cup.  MMMM and they were good!  Haven't yet had time to put the recipe into nurtritiondata, but had a quick add up of the cals and they turned out to be 132 cals per muffin!

I used plain yogurt, which I think has a bit of an unpleasant tang by itself, but makes for tasty baked goods nonetheless. Can't say how much of a difference it made, though - I've never baked with sour cream.

im trying these with splenda! this sounds awwwwesome!

sorry darlings, splenda isn't TOTALLY calorie-free. so by substituting splenda in you'd only be getting rid of a portion of the calories that would be present in the recipe using sugar.