How to make muffins better

[justmandy]

Specificly, I want to add protein natrually (no protein powder). I'm planning on making muffins for when I'm in labor and postpartum and want them to be an easy comfort food that also fuels my body.

In my basic recipe, I use at least half whole wheat flour, butter, eggs, fruit, sugar, honey and oats. (To achive a good balance of healthy and edible, I've found that mostly whole foods with a little unbleached flour and processed sugar works for us).

I'm not a fan of nuts in my muffins, so that's out unless they are ground.

What should I add and why? Some ideas I have are ground flax, and possibly other flours/grains/seeds, but I don't really know what they do for me nutritionally.

[mumkimum]

I think ground nuts would be good if you're wanting protein, specifically.

Other thoughts would be possibly coconut milk for some of your liquid (the extra fat will be good for labor/nursing energy). Dried fruits - specifically I think of figs (for calcium) maybe apricots or raisins. Seeds would be good, sesame (for calcium) and pepitas (high in zinc) are some of our favorites here for adding into dishes.

If you eat meat and like savory muffins, you could think about something like a bacon-cheddar muffin.

[serenbat]

ground flax or flax flower and we also add wheat germ besides lots of nuts

[*Jessica*]

I would add ground nuts, probably almonds.

[Llyra]

I make mine with buttermilk.

[mysticmomma]

vital wheat gluten

[425lisamarie]

How about just adding an extra egg?

I make muffins different for myself than the rest of the fam because I dont do any sugar, even honey and i'm accustomed to the taste. Mine are probably only muffins because of their shape LOL. I use dates, coconut oil, ground pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and almonds, oat and brown rice flours, eggs stevia, cinnamon. I bake them i muffin tins and they are pretty dense but that's my purpose anyways.

For the kids/DH I use whole grain spelt, and then a coarse grain cereal blend I grind of oats, millet, flax, brown rice, barley. I use ground pumpkin seeds and or almonds. When I make cocoa muffins I use prune or date puree which cuts down on the sugar need

[lissame72]

You could add some soy flour - much higher in protein than wheat. I think the usual recommendation is subbing 1/4 to 1/3 of the wheat flour with soy.

[SilvanaRose]

Mandy, do you have a good muffin recipe? I have been looking for a really healthy recipe for the same reason as you (whadya know lol) and would love to get some ideas. I will be making mine out of spelt flour.....if anyone has a really-good-totally-good-for-you muffin recipe I would love it!!

[justmandy]

I modified a recipe and came up with the labor muffins in our DDC. They were quite good. Here's the link.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1158921

If I were going to make them truely healthy, I would use coconut oil, honey and possibly ground nuts, almonds would be healthier, pecans would make me happier to add protien.

I did a nutrition calculator for them and they have 6g protein each so that's pretty good for a muffin!

[SilvanaRose]

LOL @ my pregnancy brain. I even commented on that post lol. I'm off to make some now, thanks!

[Golden]

Have you ever used Whole Wheat Pastry flour? I know you said you use half WW. I know generally that is all I can tolerate when it comes to WW flour - 50%. I discovered WW pastry flour and now I use it almost exclusively, especially for muffins and pancakes. I use Bob's Red Mill. My Job Lot sells it in 5 pound bags for a few dollars.


And yes, you can add almond meal too to increase the protein count even further. I don't like nuts in my muffins either but it isn't detectable in this form.

[ZippyGirl]

Wheat germ, garbanzo/fava bean flour (though eat some ahead of time to get used to the flour in case it makes you gassy), nuts, and seeds. Coconut oil will boost the lauric acid and medium chain fatty acid content of your breastmilk.

[justmandy]

Wow, thanks for all the great suggestions. I'll keep this thread around for all my baking.

I bought wheat germ and flax meal, I'll add a scoop of those to everything now .

I never used ww pastry flour, I'll definatly pick some up. I assume it's ground more finely, does it have the same benefits of regular ww flour?

[rainyday]

I second the rec for ww pastry flour. We pretty much only use that for cookies/cakes/quickbreads now. It's ground more finely, and it's also made using a softer (lower gluten) flour. The lower gluten level might mean it's lower in protein, though, so maybe you could use half reg ww flour and half ww pastry flour? Look around at the different ww pastry flours too. I got one once (might have been Bob's Red Mill, but I'm not sure) that was coarser and left that gritty ww feeling in cookies. Most ww pastry flour doesn't give that feeling at all, ime.

And I'd add ground nuts or maybe some nut or seed butter.

[Golden]

You're probably right about the lower gluten/lower protein, although if she is using half WW and half white right now, 100% WW Pastry flour, should be higher.