Foodsday Tuesday: Half-Baked

I'm not a baker. I like to throw things together in a kitchen, taste, see what it needs, and taste again. You can't do that when you're baking, because (a) flour and raw egg does not a tasty combination make, and (b) baking is a science wherein you have to follow a recipe closely or risk... something other than what you were going for.

Yesterday, I had the day off work (I worked an 8-day week the week before, so it was less me being lazy and more my boss being generous), and I got it in me that I needed blueberry muffins. Only problem is, baked goods aren't very Weight Watchers-friendly, and I'm way too close to my goal weight to screw it all up because I want blueberry muffins. So I decided to find a good recipe, adapt it using all the low-fat and low-calorie tricks I've learned since I began dieting in October, and see what that got me.

It got me scones. Or at least, the final product was more scone-like than muffin-like. This may have been for any number of reasons, including:

1. Blending the dry and wet ingredients for too long.
2. Mixing the blueberries in after combining the wet and dry ingredients (which I did because I wanted a few blueberry-less muffins for Ross).
3. Not using any oil or butter, which made the finished product dense.
4. Not sifting my dry ingredients together.
5. Letting the batter sit too long before baking because the incompetent phone survey-taker who promised me he only needed five minutes of my time had to ask his supervisor for help every third question and actually took almost twenty.

But whatever the case may be, the finished product was, although not what I expected, really yummy all the same. And at about 1 Weight Watchers POINT per muffin (you should have seen me doing the math on this), it fulfills my need for baked goods without making me want to exercise immediately thereafter.

What was my method? I took this recipe (which I found through Tastespotting, my porn of choice) and did the following:

• Replaced all-purpose flour with King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
• Replaced sugar with Splenda
• Replaced egg with 1/4 c. egg whites
• Replaced canola oil with equal measurement applesauce

Also, when I made it, I found myself with 14, not 24, muffins. Possibly because the batter was quite thick.

The recipe is still very much a work in progress, so if you have any tips on making the muffins more muffin-like without adding too much fat or too many calories back in, please leave a comment!

Image by author