Dark Chocolate and Cherry Brownie Muffins

I've been meaning to post this since Sunday... But what week! So here it is finally. These were a huge hit with family and friends, so hopefully they'll be with yours!

Brownies are the quintessential comfort food. Rich, chocolaty, gooey goodness that's full of fat and sugar!

In this recipe, I've cut out all the butter, thats a whole stick of butter! In its stead, I used sweet bananas and yogurt. The result was a moist, sweet and utterly delicious brownie with a hint of cherry flavor - baked in a muffin tin!

The recipe was adapted from Cooking Light, with some changes to enhance flavor and moisture.

INGREDIENTS:

.5 cup all purpose flour

.25 cup wheat flour

.75 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons dark cherry preserves

1 large egg

1 egg white

.5 dark chocolate chips

.25 cup chopped walnuts

1 teaspoon espresso powder

.25 cup mashed banana (about 1 medium banana)

.25 cup low-fat yogurt

1 cup unrefined sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

In a medium bowl, mix the banana, yogurt, sugar, egg and egg white and cherry preserves.

In a separate bowl, combine the flours, cocoa powder, espresso powder and baking powder.

Stir the flour mixture into the banana, yogurt, sugar, egg mixture, blending until well combined. Fold in the dark chocolate chips and walnuts.

Spray the muffin tin with PAM (or other vegetable/canola spray).Pour the mixture into the prepared muffin tin.

Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until the tops are springy. Cool for half an hour. Top with powdered sugar, or just enjoy alone!

Lemon Honey Corn Muffins

It's Temptation Thursday and I was in the mood for corn bread. You would think corn - anything - is generally not that bad. Sadly, no. Depending on how they are prepared; whether its baked or on a skillet using butter, oil or sour cream and whether you add loads of sugar, or very little.. You get a varying range of calories, sugar and fat.

This recipe is borrowed from a fellow blogger and foodbuzzer: Sweet and Natural.

I varied the recipe slightly by using whole wheat flour instead of rice flour and I added a bit of wheat germ for fiber as well as creamed corn (homemade) for added flavor and texture.

The result, needless to say, satisfied my corn bread craving. Light, and crumbly - these muffins go well with a shmear of preserves and a cup of coffee in the morning, or as a side for dinner.

Recipe follows:

INGREDIENTS:

.25 cup honey

.75 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tablespoons plain low fat yogurt

4 oz (about a half cup) of creamed corn

1 tablespoon wheat germ

1 egg

1 lemon, juiced and zested

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup corn meal (I used white)

1.5 teaspoon baking soda

.25 teaspoon salt

.25 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees

Spray muffin pan with cooking spray (PAM). In a large bowl, mix all the wet ingredients (honey, applesauce, yogurt, egg, lemon juice and zest, creamed corn). Mix the remaining dry ingredients separately. Slowly stir dry ingredients in with wet ingredients. Mix until well blended. Using a ice cream scoop, scoop into the muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden. Enjoy!

Baked Coconut Brown Rice Pudding

When I was a kid, my dad would cook us what we called "arroz con dulce." A delicious Puerto Rican dessert literally translated to "sweet rice." It is medium grain rice cooked in a pot with coconut milk, brown sugar, lots of butter, cinnamon and raisins. It is sweet, homey and FULL of fat!

Today I've come up with a variation, based on a pudding recipe I found on food.com. For this re-vamped recipe, I used brown rice, light coconut milk, organic, unsweetened coconut shavings, honey and turbinado sugar. To that I added some lemon juice and zest as well as a combination of spices to brighten and intensify the flavor. The result is a creamy, sweet pudding with much less fat and sugar as well as added fiber. Recipe Follows:

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cups Cooked Brown Rice *

1 Cup light Coconut Milk

.5 Cup 1% low fat milk

.25 cup honey

.25 cup unrefined (turbinado) sugar

.5 cup raisins

.5 cup dried cranberries

.5 cup chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

.5 teaspoon nutmeg, allspice, clove and ginger

In a medium saucepan, combine ingredients under medium-high heat and bring to boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Pre-heat Oven 350 degrees

Spoon mixture into prepared baking dish, cover and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil after baking halfway (about 22 minutes). Bake until the coconut milk has been fully absorbed.

Remove from oven and cool for at least a half hour.

Serve warm or refrigerate for a few hours and serve cold with sliced bananas, honey, and/or toasted coconut shavings.

* Please note, I cooked the brown rice according to package directions, substituting half of the water called for in the instructions with light coconut milk for added flavor and texture. I also added about .25 cup of coconut shavings to the rice while cooking

Dark Chocolate Chip Cranberry Walnut Cookies

It's Temptation Thursday! And was I in a tempting mood!

So it's pretty late in the evening, I'm just hanging out watching Family Guy when there's this Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip cookie commercial. My first foray into baking was just that, a batch of chocoloate chip cookies. But the butter - TWO whole sticks! The Sugar! Oh My.... So I ventured into experimentation. Using Nestle's basic recipe for Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, I sort of "re-mixed" it using more healthful, good for you ingredients - and added my own little flare to it. I'll admit, the end result lacked the "chewiness" that a cookie following the traditional recipe does. This cookie turned out lighter with a bit of a "cakey" texture - reminded me of a madeleine cookie. The flavor, however, was magnificent! Not bad for an amateur baker. It's funny, for a recipe that is so incredibly simple, it's extremely difficult to reproduce the same kind of texture and feel when swapping ingredients. The fun is in trying until you get it right!

With this cookie, I started by using a combination of all purpose and whole wheat flours, with added oatmeal and wheat germ for fiber and texture.

Instead of refined white sugar and brown sugar, I substituted unrefined sugar (Sugar in the Raw) and mashed bananas.

I've realized you can't really have a good cookie if you swap out all the butter, so in this recipe I cut the butter by half, using only one stick. To the bind the ingredients as well as maintain a moist texture, I used a combination of canola oil and low fat yogurt to substitute for the additional half cup of butter the original recipe calls for.

Recipe Follows, based off of Nestle's Toll House Cookie Recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

.5 cup All Purpose Flour

.5 cup Old Fashioned Oats

.25 cup Wheat Germ

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

.5 cup butter, softened

.25 cup Canola oil

.25 cup low fat yogurt

.75 cup Unrefined Sugar

.75 cup Mashed Bananas (about 2 large bananas)

1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

2 Eggs

.5 cup Dark Chocolate chips (or Bittersweet chocolate)

.5 cup Dried Cranberries

1 cup chopped Walnuts

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees

Combine flours, oatmeal, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl.

Beat butter, oil, vanilla extract, yogurt, sugar and bananas until creamy.

Add eggs one at a time beating well.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in nuts and cranberries. Incorporate well.

Drop onto ungreased baking sheets using a rounded tablespoon, or small ice-cream scoop.

Bake for 10-11 minutes, until golden. Let cool before serving.

Enjoy!

Nutty Raspberry Bars

This was a weekend full of berry delights. After baking my lovely Triple Berry Crisp, I had plenty of ripe, delicious raspberries leftover. So what to do? Some more baking, of course!

The first thought in my head were the delicious raspberry bars I used to buy at the farmer's market over the summer. These bars were addictive! They consisted of a shortbread bottom layer, with a raspberry jam filling and an almond streusel topping. So, so delcious! But not so good for you! Shortbread itself is filled with butter, not to mention the streusel topping. And the sugar? Woah! So after some research I found a wonderful recipe for homemade whole grain organic raspberry bars on blisstree.com. I adapted this recipe and voila! Beautiful, guiltless raspberry bars. The base layer for these bars is not a shortbread but made with wheat flour, oats, wheat germ and nuts. Not only that, butter was completely removed from this recipe, substituting canola oil. The raspberry filling was adapted from Ina Garten's raspberry sauce recipe using unrefined sugar and maple syrup as substitutes for the sugar and liqueur. Recipe Follows:

INGREDIENTS:

The bars (base layer and topping):

1.5 cup old fashioned oats

.25 cup wheat germ

.75 cup whole wheat flour

.3 cup walnuts and almonds, crushed

.3 (1/3) cup brown sugar

.3 (1/3) cup unrefined sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

.3 (1/3) cup canola oil

1 large egg

Raspberry filling:

8 ounces fresh raspberries (about 1 cup)

.5 cup unrefined sugar

.25 cup water

1 cup raspberry jam (I used homemade jam I bought at the farmer's market)

1 teaspoon maple syrup

Place the raspberries, sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to boil, lower the heat, and simmer for about 4 minutes. Pour into a mixing bowl, add the jam and maple syrup. Mix well by hand or using a mixer. You can use a food processor or blender if you like your sauce smooth, but I prefer a chunky sauce. Once well integrated, place in the refridgerator to chill and set.

Pre heat oven 350 degrees

For the bottom and top layers, combine the oats, flour, wheat germ, nuts, and cinnamon. If you'd like your dough-crumb mixture to be fine, use a food processor. I prefer a chunkier dough, so I used a hand mixer. Add the oil and egg, combine until fully integrated.

Press half the dough-crumb mixture to the bottom of a baking pan. Use hands to flatten and make sure it's even. Add the chilled raspberry filling evenly over the crumbs. Top with remaining crumbs and pat down gently.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool for about 1 hour, cut into bars. Enjoy!

Triple Berry Crisp

Over the weekend while grocery shopping, I came upon a beautiful bounty of berries. I just had to buy buy buy. So what to do with all these gorgeous ripe berries? Make a healthful, antioxidant rich, delicious treat. Hence, my triple berry crisp. This recipe is an adaptation of Food Network's Gina and Pat Neely's blueberry crisp recipe. I used whole wheat flour, pure unrefined (turbinado) sugar, half the butter and wheat germ for added fiber for the topping; and fresh raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries for the filling. To brighten the flavor (and added Vitamin C!), I added lemon and orange zest along with juice from half of each fruit. Recipe follows.

INGREDIENTS:

Filling:

6 cups fresh raspberries, strawberries (hulled), blackberries

1 tablespoon cornstarch

.25 cup unrefined sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw)

Pinch of salt

zest and juice from half a lemon and orange

Topping:

.25 cup whole wheat flour

.25 cup oatmeal (preferably old fashioned)

2 tablespoons wheat germ

.25 cup brown sugar

.25 cup unrefined sugar

.25 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

.5 stick of unsalted butter

.75 cup almonds and walnuts, crushed (or any other nut if you prefer)

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees

Toss the berries along with the cornstarch, unrefined sugar, salt, lemon and orange zest and juice. Set aside.

In another bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, wheat germ, brown sugar, unrefined sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add butter, combine. The butter should not be melted, but chunky. Add the nuts, mix until crumbly.

Add the berry mixture to a glass baking dish (I used a pie dish). Top evenly with topping mixture (you may have some left over).

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the topping is a golden brown. The berries will be bubbling over, so cover the bottom of your oven with some foil!

Serve with your favorite frozen yogurt, sorbet, or ice cream (I won't tell!)

Whole Wheat Blintz with Ricotta, Apple, Walnut, Raisin Filling

This a first for me, but I am quite pleased with the turnout! How can you go wrong with creamy lightly sweetened ricotta cheese, sauteed apples and raisins with a sprinkle of crunchy walnuts - all enveloped in a light crepe-like dough?

A traditional blintz recipe calls for full fat ricotta and/or cream cheese for the filling as well as lots of butter, refined sugars and whole milk for the crepe batter. I lightened the load by substituting canola oil when possible, and cutting the butter by half. In addition, I used maple syrup as a sweetener in place of white sugar as well as low fat 1% milk.

For the batter I used a combination of whole wheat flour and all purpose flour as well as added a tablespoon of wheat germ for added fiber. Recipe Follows:

INGREDIENTS (makes 4-5 blintzes)

Whole Wheat Crepe:

.5 cup whole wheat flour

.5 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon Sugar in the Raw (or Turbinado Sugar)

.25 teaspoon salt

2 whole eggs, 1 egg white

.5 cup 1% milk

2 teaspoons canola oil

.5 cup water

1 tablespoon wheat germ

Combine ingredients until well blended, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight.

Apple Raisin Walnut Filling:

3 Tablespoon butter

2 large apples (I prefer Gala), cut into pieces

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon lemon juice

.25 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 tablespoon honey

Confectioner's sugar (optional)

In a medium bowl add lemon juice to chopped apple/raisin/walnut mixture, combine, set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan, add the chopped apples, raisins, and walnuts, mix and coat with melted butter. Saute for about 5 minutes on medium/low heat. Add the maple syrup, honey and cinnamon. Saute for another 5 minutes until bubbling and the apple is tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

Sweet Ricotta Filling:

1 cup part skim ricotta cheese

1 lemon

.5 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons maple syrup

Combine ingredients, zest one lemon, cut it in half and juice one half of the lemon. Mix until well integrated.

PREPARATION

Heat one large frying pan, spray with PAM (or similar) vegetable oil. Ladle the crepe batter (about 4-5 tablespoons worth) onto the pan, swirl the pan around to make sure it is entirely coated with batter, and the batter is thinned out. The batter hardens quickly, so keep an eye on it. After about a minute, turn the crepe over.

Add about 2 tablespoons of the apple/raisin/walnut mixture to the center of the crepe, followed by a dollop (about 2 tablespoons) of the ricotta mixture.

Gently fold each end of the crepe over the filling to form a bundle.

Remove from heat and place the bundle on a prepared cookie sheet (covered with foil or parchment paper - if using foil, spray lightly with PAM)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place the cookie sheet with the blintz bundles (seam side down) in the center of the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes - or until the tops are golden.

Remove from heat and cool for about 5 minutes. Serve warm with pure maple syrup or with fruit spread. This makes a perfect, hearty weekend brunch!

Temptation Thursday Special: S'more Cups

Well, try as I might to only bake (and eat) dessert snacks on weekends, sometimes the temptation is unbearable. This post is what I'd like to call "Temptation Thursday."

What can I say about s'mores. Something about the very simple combination makes it so incredibly yummy. To make them more "grown up" and fun for serving, I crushed the graham crackers and made a crust, topped with dark chocolate and marshmallows. The end result, simply delicious S'more cups. I adapted this recipe from the s'more cup recipe found on http://pamperedchef.com. I made some slight changes to make it a bit more health conscious - most notably to the graham cracker crust. Instead of butter and refined sugars, I switched it up to low fat yogurt, unsweetened cocoa powder and maple syrup. The end result is a moist, crunchy crust - with much less fat/calories.

For the toppings, I used dark chocolate chunks instead of milk chocolate candy. This gives it a richer flavor, with the added benefit of powerful antioxidants. As for the marshamallows.. Hey lets' live a little.. Can't really substitute those!

Be sure and let cool for at least an hour before serving, so the crust can have time to set. Recipe to follow, Enjoy!



INGREDIENTS

For the Crust:
1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 8 graham cracker sheets, crushed)
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons low-fat plain yogurt
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Topping:
9 marshmallows
.5 cup dark chocolate chunks


DIRECTIONS
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

In a medium bowl, mix the ingredients. With an ice cream scoop, scoop and press the graham mixture to the muffin tin (I used six of the twelve cup muffin tin).

Bake for 6-7 minutes until the graham is bubbly. Remove from oven, cool for about 5 minutes.


Sprinkle about a quarter cup of the chocolate chunks into each cup, top with one marshmallow. I cut the marshmallow in half and place in the cups. Place back in the oven for about 2 minutes, or the chocolate chunks are melted. Remove from oven to cool.

For an added treat, I melted the remaining quarter cup of chunks in the microwave, took three marshmallows, cut in half and dipped in the melted chocolate. I placed the chocolate covered marshmallow half on top of each s'more cup. Let cool for about an hour to set.

Serve warm or cold, with a tall glass of milk!