It's not hard to make excellent lowfat muffins," Terry Blonder Gol-son says in "1,000 Lowfat Recipes" (Macmillan, $29.95).
It can be well worth doing, she adds, since a muffin bought at a bakery or from a fast-food chain may contain more than 400 calories and 18 grams of fat.One trick to making excellent muffins, she says, is "to mix the batter by hand, with wide strokes, only until moist. To avoid over-beating but to make sure that the ingredients are evenly distributed in the batter, stir the dry ingredients until the flour mixture is an even color. That way, once the wet and dry ingredients are combined, only a few stirrings with a flexible rubber spatula are necessary to mix the batter. As with most quick breads, lumps are all right, but dry patches are not."
She points out that these Maple Cream Cheese-Filled Muffins offer a nice surprise - inside each is a mouthful of sweet, soft cheese. "They are excellent both warm and at room temperature."
MAPLE CREAM CHEESE-FILLED MUFFINS
1/4 cup reduced-fat cream cheese
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
Beat the cream cheese and maple syrup together until smooth.
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Coat 10 muffin cups with nonstick spray.
Sift together the flours, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, egg whites and sugar.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Gently fold together until an evenly moist batter forms.
Spoon into the muffin cups until they are one-quarter full. Drop a teaspoon of the sweetened cream cheese in the center of each muffin, then finish filling the muffin cups with batter.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the muffins are firm and golden to the touch.
Makes 10 muffins.
- Nutritional information per muffin: 188 cals., 5 g pro., 7 g fat, 26 g carbo., 282 mg sodium.