Recipe: Pumpkin/Blueberry/Pecan Muffins with Protein

These turned out pretty good. We made them for breakfast one morning this past week. I am posting the recipe AS I PREPARED it, not as I originally found it and there are enough changes to it that I feel safe in calling it my own now! LOL

Pumpkin/Blueberry/Pecan Muffins with Protein
1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar blend
3 tbsp rice bran oil (or olive or canola, whatever oil you normally use)
1 can pumpkin (not pie mix! just pumpkin--15 ozs)
1/4 cup milk (original recipe called for skim but I used 2%)
1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 egg
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup almond flour
1/3 cup soy flour
1/4 cup Splenda granulated
2 scoops unflavored Unjury protein powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsps pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup ground flax seed (flax meal)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups frozen or fresh blueberries
3/4 cup ground/chopped pecans (you can use walnuts, hazelnuts, etc)

1) mix brown sugar blend and oil till well mixed
2) add pumpkin, milk, sour cream and egg and mix again
3) in seperate bowl, mix all flours, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, salt, Splenda granulated, protein powder, and flax meal till well blended and lumps are gone
4) add wet mix to dry mix and blend thoroughly
5) fold in berries and nuts
6) bake in center of oven at 350 degrees for about 20 to 24 minutes or till toothpick inserted in center comes out clean

This batch made 18 regular cupcake sized muffins. With those stats, each muffin is about 130 cals, 6.4 grams of fat but only .9 saturated, 12.8 grams of carbs that are 2.3 fiber and 5.4 sugars, and each muffin has about 5.4 grams of protein!

These rose nicely and were very moist and spongy, not dense like some recipes where you use the protein powder can be. I think that the next time I try these I'll sub some oats for part of that all purpose flour! And then sprinkle a few dry oats on top before baking! I used fresh blueberries and they were soooooo juicy that they burst as you ate them! Yummy! I'm certainly not advocating making these an every day thing, but I recently commented to another postop that when you get a sweet tooth, you are probably better off to cave right away and have a bit of something (like a muffin!) than putting it off and putting it off till you eat a whole plate of muffins, cake, cookies, whatever! I was able to eat two of these muffins as breakfast twice this past week. But, that was my whole breakfast and added up to 260 calories, 25.6 carbs, and 10.8 grams of protein. I will still be able to balance my day's budget of calories, carbs, and protein VERY easily! These are supposed to freeze and reheat well, so I've bagged the rest and tossed them in the freezer for another sweet tooth day or a day when I want something like this for breakfast!

NOTE: If you choose to make these withOUT the protein powder, you must substitute another 1/2 cup of some sort of flour (your choice) for that amount of ingredients.

Hugs,
Lea