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If you saw my “Better” Blueberry Muffin recipe, this first part will be a bit repetitive. If not, feel free to click on the link for another recipe you might enjoy! Regardless of whether you’ve heard this before or not, it bears repeating: foods are neither intrinsically “good” nor “bad” — it’s all about context.

Foods exist on a spectrum. When you’re trying to eat well, maybe lose some weight, it’s really about trying to make “better” choices along that spectrum. I created this recipe by taking a typical muffin recipe and swapping out a number of ingredients with some “better” choices, and the result of those small changes was the second in my series of “better” muffin recipes.

A typical cinnamon raisin muffin can run anywhere from 250-350 calories, with 10-15 grams of fat, up to 50 grams of simple, fast-burning carbs (from all the added sugar and bleached flour), and very little protein. My “better” version comes in at 104 calories, 1 gram of fat, 6 grams of protein, 18 complex (slow-burning) carbs, and just 11 grams of sugar. How is this accomplished? By a series of small changes: 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. So in that regard, if you’re choosing between a regular cinnamon raisin 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 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup chopped dates
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
• 1/3 cup vanilla unsweetened almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup no-sugar added applesauce
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 tbsp turbinado 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!

Start with the Dry Ingredients

To begin with, in your large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients – the oats, the whole wheat flour, the pea protein, the baking soda, the cinnamon and the salt. Mix until well combined. Next add the raisins and dates to this mix. If you’re not a fan of dates or you don’t have them handy, just go with 3/4 cups of raisins instead. I do prefer the mix if you can do it as the dates add a nice moisture and sweetness to the muffins.

Gently toss the raisins/dates 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. Begin with the two eggs. Before adding anything else, gently whisk the eggs until well blended. Then add the remaining wet ingredients – the Greek yogurt, 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, I divide one tablespoon of turbinado sugar up as I sprinkle it on top of the muffins. You certainly can leave this step out if you like, but I believe this small amount lends itself to that “muffin top” texture we’ve all come to expect. You could substitute cinnamon sugar here if you like, but that hasn’t worked out as well in my experience.

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.