Healthier Gingerbread Muffins

Why make cookies when you can make healthier gingerbread muffins? These muffins are tender and go wonderfully with a warm cup of coffee. 

Gingerbread! Gingerbread MUFFINS.

Once you pass Thanksgiving, take all your spices and make muffins and serve them with coffee. These muffins are life. They’re all the things we love about gingerbread cookies, like the SPICE. But served up in a tender and puffy package that’s undoubtedly more acceptable to serve for breakfast any day of the week. Although, I’m not above having cookies for breakfast. But I’m pretty sure that’s just me.

Additionally, these are healthier gingerbread muffins because we’re making them with coconut oil and splitting some of the flour into whole wheat. We’re also cutting back on some of the sugar and using applesauce to help sweeten the muffins naturally. I love adding applesauce to baked goods like carrot cake muffins ^[1], zucchini muffins ^[2] and of course, these gingerbread muffins because it not only adds a hint of natural sweetness but also lots of moisture, leaving us without a dry crumb in sight.

When I want something sweet for breakfast (which is like, every day), the first thing I get a hankering for is a soft and fluffy muffin that’s swirled, topped, or loaded with cinnamon something. It’s such a regular thing in our house that Anees often asks, ‘are you looking for your breakfast dessert?’ More often than I’d like to recall, I find myself saying yes. Every meal of the day needs its own dessert.

I see no problems here.

More things to love about healthier gingerbread muffins:

1. No need for a stand mixer or a hand mixer! Sometimes a girl just wants to grab a spatula and do it the old fashion way.
2. As a bonus, these muffins take just 10 quick minutes of hands-on time.
3. We’re replacing almost half of the flour with whole wheat and people like me that don’t always love whole wheat baked goods, can’t even tell it’s there.
4. We’re using coconut oil instead of butter. I don’t know where you stand on the oil vs. butter debate. I know I like both, but when it comes to muffins, I slightly prefer making them with oil. Especially coconut oil, because of its natural sweetness that works well with all the spices in this recipe.
5. You can feel good about serving these muffins to those you love because we’re using ingredients like unsweetened applesauce and greek yogurt. Greek yogurt can be replaced with sour cream if you want them to have a little more tang and richness.

Skinny muffins are my thing. I love these healthier gingerbread muffins and the fact that they’re lower in calories and fat doesn’t hurt either. Of course that all changed if you decide to dip them in maple icing like I did.

It’s also enticing that they take in the ballpark of 30 minutes to make from start to finish and you don’t need any proper equipment. Just a muffin pan ^[3] (affiliate link), measuring cups ^[4] (affiliate link), a bowl, and a spatula.

Make the weekend a little extra special with a fresh plate of muffins to go with your joe!

P.S. make healthier gingerbread muffins, then dunk them in maple icing and make them unhealthy. There’s always room for a little icing!

Yield: 12 muffins

Healthier Gingerbread Muffins

Prep Time:10 mins

Cook Time:20 mins

Total Time:30 mins

Why make cookies when you can make healthier gingerbread muffins? These muffins are tender and go wonderfully with a warm cup of coffee.  

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Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon EACH: salt, cloves, AND nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon EACH: ground ginger AND cinnamon
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt or sour cream
• turbinado sugar or maple icing for topping

Directions:

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375ºF. Add the dry ingredients (flours, baking soda, and spices) in a bowl, whisk to combine.
2. In a large microwave-safe bowl, add the coconut oil and zap it until it melts (about 20-30 seconds). Allow the coconut oil to cool. Once the bowl and coconut oil is cool enough to touch, whisk in the molasses. Once combined add the egg, applesauce, brown sugar, milk, and sour cream, continue to whisk until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the dry ingredients, switch to a spatula and fold until *just* combined. You don’t want to overwork the batter here or it will result in it drier muffins.
3. Spray a muffin pan with nonstick spray or line the pan with liners. Scoop the batter into muffin tins and sprinkle with turbinado sugar on top. If you plan on making the icing, you can skip the turbinado sugar. Bake the muffins for 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out mostly clean. Cool for a few minutes until muffins are warm, not hot, then dip in icing.
4. icing: in a small bowl, whisk together 1 cup of confectioners (powdered) sugar + 1 tablespoon maple syrup + 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Dip the tops of the muffins in the prepared glaze. Let harden about 20 minutes on a baking rack.

Notes:

 

 

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