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Another day, another muffin recipe! I go into more detail about all of this on the OG of my muffins — the “Better” Blueberry Muffin recipe — but it bears repeating here: foods are neither intrinsically “good” nor “bad” — it’s all about context. That’s why I label all of my muffins as “better” muffins. These recipes are the results of taking a typical muffin recipe, swapping out a number of ingredients with some slightly “better” ones, and those small changes add up to a healthier option.

A typical apple pie / apple cinnamon muffin can run anywhere from 400-450 calories, with up to 50-60 grams of simple, fast-burning carbs, around 30 grams of sugar and and very little protein. My “better” version comes in at just 97 calories and 1 gram of fat, 16 complex (slow-burning carbs), nine grams of sugar and six grams of protein. How is this accomplished? By replacing the all-purpose flour with a combination of oats, whole wheat flour and pea protein. Replacing the granulated sugar with maple syrup, and replacing the oil and butter with non-fat Greek yogurt and no-sugar added applesauce.

Would I call it a “healthy” muffin or classify it as a “good” food? No. There’s really no such thing. I hope you enjoy the taste and the texture, and that it is hunger-satisfying thanks to the protein and the belly-satisfying carbs. So in that regard, if you’re choosing between a regular apple cinnamon-type muffin and this version, hopefully you’ll agree that this one is, well… “better”… and give it a try!

Ingredients (Yields 19 muffins)

• 1 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 4 scoops Naked Pea protein powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp apple pie spice
• 1/3 cup chopped dates
• 1 medium honey crisp apple (peeled, cored, and diced)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup vanilla unsweetened almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup no-sugar added applesauce
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 tbsp light brown sugar

Equipment Check

Despite the relatively long list of ingredients, this is a simple and quick recipe to make. Before you start, you’ll want a pair of muffin pans (12 muffin capacity), a large mixing bowl and a medium mixing bowl. It would also be quite useful to have a whisk on hand, as well as a mixing spoon. That’s really it!

Apple & Cinnamon Prep

Before we start assembling the ingredients, this muffin requires that two of the ingredients to get a little special attention.

First, the apple. I prefer to use Honey Crisp apples – they’re sweet and crisp making them ideal for baking. But other apples such as Gala, Braeburn, or Cortland would work just as well. Even Granny Smith if you prefer a less sweet finished product. Whatever apple you choose, you need to peel it, core it, and then dice it into small, similarly sized pieces. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a blueberry or small raspberry (size-wise) works best.

Over medium heat on the stove top, cook the apple pieces down for 4-5 minutes with the cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of the apple pie spice until they soften slightly. Even if using a non-stick pan, a bit of moisture helps get the process going, so either a bit of cooking spray, a tsp of water, apple juice, or even adding the vanilla extract at this point rather than later. Up to you. Normally, just coating the pan with cooking spray is sufficient for me to get the process going.

Second, is the brown sugar (which we will use to top the muffins). Combine the 1 tbsp of light brown sugar with the remaining 1/2 tsp of apple pie spice and mix well in a small cup. Set aside. If your brown sugar is not perfectly smooth, you might want to pulse it in a mini-chopper/spice grinder for a few seconds. I find that combines the ingredients and makes the finished product much easier to sprinkle.

By the way, if you don’t have apple pie spice you can either use straight cinnamon, or make your own apple pie spice — it is just cinnamon with a pinch of both nutmeg and allspice.

Combine the Dry Ingredients

Once the apples and sugar prep is done, in your large mixing bowl, combine all the remaining dry ingredients – the oats, the whole wheat flour, the pea protein, the baking powder, baking soda, salt and the chopped dates. Mix until well combined.

Gently toss the apples into the dry mix until they get a light coating of dry ingredients (mainly the flour) on them. This is prevent them all from sinking to the bottom of your muffins when baking. Once done, set the large bowl aside.

Next Up – Wet Ingredients

In your second bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Whisk the eggs until well blended. Then add the yogurt and whisk until smooth. Finally, add in the remaining wet ingredients – the almond milk, the vanilla extract, the applesauce and the maple syrup and whisk together until the mixture is smooth. It should have the appearance of a pancake batter.

Batter Up!

Next, pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently stir together until completely combined. Make sure to get all the way to the bottom of the bowl so that there are no pockets of dry ingredients remaining. The batter should be sticky and loose but not runny if properly combined. If it feels too dry, add an additional splash of almond milk.

Let’s Bake!

You’ll want to cook in one (or two if you prefer) ovens preheated to 375 degrees. So get your ovens going before you start on the batter. As for preparing your muffin tins I’ve gone about this both ways. The first few times I made these, I used paper muffin cups. They’re obviously easier for clean up, but the downside is I found that occasionally the muffin would stick to the paper when trying to take it out. I finally decided to, instead, simply coat my muffin tins with cooking spray (using a paper towel to make sure it was evenly applied) at it worked quiet well.

One final note on this topic. In terms of order of operations, once I have my dry and wet ingredients prepared, that is the point at which I normally prep my pans. Once they are ready, then I combine wet and dry and proceed to baking. I don’t like to let the batter sit any longer than I have to before getting it in the oven.

Whichever method you use, once the batter is evenly divided in the trays, sprinkle the muffins with the brown sugar mixture.

Every time I’ve baked these I’ve ended up with 19 muffins. You easily could make each of the first 18 muffins a bit larger to get to a nice even number… but I like having that extra “tester” muffin that I can immediately tear into to check for taste and texture without breaking up the complete set. But that’s just how my brain works.

Timing-wise, the muffins tend to take around 13-15 minutes to cook. I normally rotate the pans after about 10 minutes, and start testing them around 12 minutes. When a cake tester comes out clean in the middle of the muffins, I pull them out.

Let the muffins rest for a minute or so that they will pull away from the tins, and then pop them out and let them cool. I tend to refrigerate my muffins (to extend their life a few more days) but with no fresh fruit in these, you could just put these in an air tight container on the counter and they should be good for a 3-4 days at least.