Lemon Poppy Seeds Muffins with Lemon Glaze

I don't know, I love to buy lemon when it's on sale.  And if it is 3 for $1, I would buy 3 instead of 1 even though I only needed one.  Often time when that happen, I have no idea what to do with the lemons.  I just realized that I can just cut it into slices and put it into an air-tight container in the fridge and take each slice out for use in my water (to make it alkaline).

Anyway, for these 2 lemons that I was left with, I decided to make Lemon Poppy Seeds Muffins.  I created this recipe because I want to make it into a recipe that is easy to make and less thing to wash.   No electric appliance needed, just a bowl and a hand whisk!  It turned out soft, lemony and delicious, even my hubby that normally doesn't eat sweet had 3 in a day!  Of course the rest my girls walloped it up, now I will need to buy more lemons to make more of these yummies.

Soft and fluffy with the flavor of lemon and the crunch from the poppy seeds!

Dairy Free Superfoods Muffins

This is the upgraded version of my healthy muffins.  I am making this dairy free because lots of health conscious people don't drink milk.  I am in the transition to change it to almond milk.  The almond milk that I want to make myself.  However, if I can't find raw almonds on sales or gotten lazy, I would buy the one that is non-GMO verified with minimal ingredient list.  Anyway, this dairy free muffin was created because I was out of almond milk and needed to find a substitute.  So, I thought why not tried it with water?  Tada!  It worked beautifully and turned out moist and delicious. Lesson learned:  We don't need milk to make the banana muffin moist.

One of this muffin with a cup of coffee, you are super charge for the day!  Try it and feedback to me ya!  This muffin is delicious!
 

Healthy Muffins

I always trying to make my muffin more nutritious.  I was not happy with just a plain banana muffin, I wanted it to be packed with superfood nutrients.  So, for this I added oats, flaxseeds, chia seeds, stone ground whole wheat flour and good oil, extra-virgin olive oil (you can use coconut oil too).  I also added chocolate chips (per my girls request) for my girls and dried cranberries for us.  Next time will also add some walnuts to kick it up a notch!  I made these muffins for our breakfast and it keeps well at room-temperature for up to three days.

These muffins are soft and moist and a delicious healthy muffin!  Try it and feedback to me ya!

Whole Wheat Chia Banana Muffins

Just like the name implied, I modified my original banana recipe to make it 100% whole wheat with chia seeds.  Next time I would add additional 1 Tbsp. of ground flaxseeds into the mixture instead of using it as topping.  By adding the whole wheat and flaxseed cereal, it would be crispy when it was warm out of the oven but it would turn soft later.  So, if you would like to eat it right away or on the day it was baked, then it would be a good idea, if not, just omit it and add the ground flaxseeds into the mixture before baking (I added it in the recipe for your convenient).

This muffin is soft and not very sweet (just nice for Asian taste bud).  I purposely cutting down on the sugar to make it healthier.  I hope you like it!

Banana Carrot Pulp Muffins

With the frozen bananas and carrot pulp in the freezer, I thought of why not just combined the two?  Hence, this muffin was created.  It took the fragrant of banana and not a bad eat I tell you.  This muffin cup that I used made a big muffin so my girls only had half as their breakfast.  I added walnut in this too!

I think the banana flavor stood up because I used canola oil (neutral) and all-purpose flour (neutral).  It might taste and smell different with different oil and flour used for instance olive oil and whole wheat flour, might even have a different texture too. 

Showing you the inside of this muffins.  It's moist and soft with the fragrant of banana!

100% Whole Wheat Carrot Pulp Muffins

This healthy 100% whole wheat carrot pulp muffins uses little oil and sugar.  However, if you like it sweeter, you can increase the sugar amount (I included it in the ingredients list).  To make this muffin healthier, I used extra virgin olive oil, brown sugar and cane sugar (you can use all brown sugar or cane sugar if you like).  And what a great way to use up the carrot pulp left from juicing!  If you read it previously, I measured my carrot pulp into 1 cup serving size container and freeze it individually.  Just thaw it in the refrigerator the night before you want to use it.

These muffins are moist and soft and not sweet.  Since it has egg (protein), carrot (Vitamin A, fiber), milk (calcium), olive oil (healthy fat), whole wheat flour (carbohydrate), salt and sugar, I considered it a balance breakfast or snack.  You can also add nuts or seeds for extra nutrients!

Oatmeal Raisin Yogurt Muffins

I often buy the big tub of yogurt for my girls when it goes on sales.  I came upon this recipe when I opened a strawberry nonfat yogurt for my girls.  This easy and healthy muffin recipe attracted me at first glance.   As my readers know, I am a sucker for healthy and easy recipe, so this whisk and bake recipe got my vote.  This strawberry yogurt came with pieces of strawberry bits so it was a plus and the muffins turned out well.  Not very sweet and good for breakfast.

Both my girls loved this muffin as well.  Evy would take this as a snack for school and the daddy can grab one before going to the office.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Do you ever have some apples sitting in the refrigerator for weeks that no one wants to eat? I always have a few sitting there. One day, I was out of bread so I decided to make some apple muffins for breakfast; one, I could get rid of the apple; two, we could have muffins for breakfast. I wanted this muffin to be healthier too so I used some whole wheat flour, canola oil and lots of apple. I always love muffin with crumbs topping but that would means added fat as normally it is made with butter, flour and brown sugar. So, my healthier alternative would be cornflakes cereal for the extra crunch. It is really crunchy and delicious when eaten on the same day. But the cereal will turn soft the next day when kept in an air-tight container, but not to worry, just toast it for 4-5 minutes in the toaster oven to crisp it up and warm the muffin before consuming. Enjoy! It also makes an healthier snack compared to cupcakes packed with frosting.

Green Tea Muffin with Red Bean Paste

Received this as a suggestion from a reader. And since I have some canned red bean and water chestnut paste in my pantry, I decided to give it a go. I used my green tea yogurt muffin recipe and added a dollop of red bean and chestnut paste in the middle before baking. I thought red bean paste pair better with green tea flavor, so I tried it with green tea muffin. It yields 18 muffins for me, so again I have to give some away and freeze some for later consumption. I will take it out a night before and let it defroze and be ready for breakfast the next day.

Steamed Banana Muffins

The main purpose of this post is I want to share this tips with you. See the picture above? For those that own the oval shape silicon cups, you can actually use the round paper cups in your oval silicon cups. When you pour in the batter, it actually spread into the oval shape like mine above. I love to use paper cups because I am too lazy to clean the silicon cups, if you are like me, you will love this tips.


For some reason my steamed banana muffins actually smiling at me. It's probably because I poured in more batter and steamed at rapidly boiling water. ;)


I just love this steamed banana muffins! Hmmm...should I called this a muffin or cupcake? I like to call all my cake baked or steamed in paper cups cupcakes because they are basically cake in a cup right or cup size cake? But I read that the frosted cupcake is called a cupcake and all the unfrosted cupcake is supposed to be called a muffin? Don't know why I always associate muffin to have denser texture compared to cupcake. :P

Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

I wanted to create a healthier version of muffins. What makes a normal muffins healthier? I was playing with the combination in my head. One that has carrots, walnuts and raisins, without any butter, with a little heart healthy canola oil and makes with whole wheat flour! Sounds great right? I didn't want to experiment with 100% whole wheat flour because I was afraid that the muffins would be dense and I like my muffins soft. So, I used a combination of whole wheat flour and cake flour. I love it, the whole wheat carrot muffins turned out great, soft and delicious. What's best is it's less guilty!


Sharing with you my recipe:

Strawberry Muffins

How pretty is that color isn't it? I loved it! Strawberry is pretty cheap these days. I just bought 4lb. of strawberries for $4.99, pretty cheap right? Furthermore, it's really sweet and fragrant. I'm not someone who likes sour fruit like strawberry, kiwi, orange, etc. I prefer my fruit sweet. So, I'm really glad that this batch of strawberries are sweet. I decided to experiment again and made this strawberries muffins using this recipe from allrecipes.com but with slight modification.



I'm really low on baking powder, only about 1 tsp. left so I won't be able to follow the recipe. I used 2 cup of self-raising flour and omitted the baking powder. Added 1 tsp. of strawberry extract and 1 1/2 cup of chopped strawberries. Save some of the strawberries to put on top of the muffins before baking. The muffins turned out to be soft, moist, not very sweet and nice with slight strawberry fragrant. These muffins are sure an healthier alternative to cupcakes as no butter was used and only a little oil, one egg were used in making this. Good for my breakfast and tea time snack! Furthermore, my hubby loved it too!

Double Chocolate Banana Bread Muffins

Made this using my marble banana bread recipe. But instead of marbling it, I mixed all the batter with the melted chocolate and added chocolate chips, thus made it a double chocolate banana bread muffins.

Note:

1. I think I overbaked it because I found it to be a bit dry.

2. Thus, for those that are trying, add 1/4 cup more oil into the recipe.