Small round quick breads that are either savory or sweet, muffins are easy to bake and come out moist and tender every time if you use a few special baking tricks. Whether plain, filled with fruits like blueberries or bananas, or containing vegetables like pumpkin or zucchini, muffins can be made fancier by the addition of nuts, dried fruit or streusel crumb toppings. Healthy muffin recipes call for high-fiber whole grains, natural sugars as sweeteners, and healthy fats and oils in the ingredients. Serve healthy muffins for yourself or your kids for breakfast or as a snack, straight out of the oven or warmed up in a 300 degree oven from the freezer where they will store for up to two weeks.

While not every muffin recipe is healthy, you can turn very rich muffin recipes into healthy ones with a few substitutions. Muffin recipes usually include:

• flour
• oil
• leavening agent: baking powder or baking soda
• liquid (milk, fruit juice, egg, yogurt)
• flavor enhancements, like fruit, nuts, flavoring, and cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices.

Muffins can be made healthier by the addition of beta-carotene-containing vegetables such as carrots, sweet potato and pumpkin. Banana muffins have plenty of potassium, and bran muffins are rich in the natural soluble fiber in oat bran or wheat bran. Protein can be boosted with pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds. Use extra virgin olive oil as the oil in healthy muffins, especially those recipes with strongly flavorful ingredients; the taste of the olive oil will not intrude.

Muffins don't need to have refined sugar; they can be sweetened by a dollop of brown rice syrup, barley malt, maple syrup, honey, organic evaporated cane juice, or simply fruit juices. The addition of apples, dried cranberry or dried raisins can provide much of a muffin's sweetness. If you use a wet sweetener, decrease the liquid ingredients correspondingly. And if you do use regular sugar, halve the amount called for in the recipe.

Muffins don't necessarily even need sweetening. Savory muffins like jalapeno cheese can be spicy. Traditionally, corn muffins are made without added sugar; for corn muffins to be naturally sweet, try grinding the cornmeal fresh.

Use whole wheat pastry flour for tender whole grain muffins. For gluten-free muffins, use a coconut flour base or a gluten-free flour mix of brown rice flour, potato starch and arrowroot starch. Coconut flour also makes a great low-carb muffin. Typically, when baking with coconut flour, very little flour is needed, and eggs are used in quantity.

Low- or no-cholesterol muffins can be made by leaving out eggs, increasing the liquid proportionally and adding loft with extra leavening agent.

Muffins made without milk or other dairy products make perfectly delicious dairy-free muffins.

When you make your favorite muffin recipe, mix the dry ingredients together in a big non-reactive bowl. Then stir in any extra "dry" additions--nuts or dried fruit. Also add fresh or frozen blueberries, if you're using them. Pat a well into the middle of this flour mixture.

In a separate bowl or cup measure, mix together the wet ingredients. Add any wet extras besides fresh or frozen blueberries-- carrots, raspberries, pumpkin, pineapple, etc--to the wet ingredients last, stirring it in just lightly.

Pour the wet into the dry ingredients. With a wooden spoon, stir gently--not vigorously--just until the flour mixture has been moistened and most flour spots are no longer visible.

The leavening agent will begin immediately to act and you'll notice the muffin batter rising. Another rising will occur in the oven, however. Quickly but gently spoon the batter into greased muffin tins. Each muffin well should be filled to around three quarters full. Leave at least one well unfilled. Pour some water into any unfilled muffin wells. This water will help turn your muffins moist as it steams in the oven.

The following recipe can be used as a basic muffin recipe, and modified according to the various suggestions in this article.  The key is to keep the ratio of dry ingredients and wet ingredients the same. 

Adding all nuts and berries to the dry ingredients before blending with the wet ingredients has two advantages:  1) it prevents your having to mix the batter too much, and 2) it keeps the berry juice from "bleeding" into the wet ingredients.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour (1/4 cup of oat bran may be substituted for 1/4 cup of the flour)
  
• 2 tablespoons food starch (cornstarch, arrowroot powder, water chestnut starch, or potato starch)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• 1/4 cup 100% pure maple syrup, honey or fruit-based liquid sweetener, dry rapadura sugar or other unrefined granulated sugar (If using brown rice syrup, increase to 1/2 cup and reduce milk to 2/3 cup.  If using dry granulated sugar, increase milk by 1/4 cup.)
  
• 1 egg, beaten (or 1/4 cup egg substitute)
  
• 3/4 cup whole or 2% milk (cow's milk, soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, etc.)
  
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries, cranberries, or other berry, lightly patted dry (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together thoroughly in a medium bowl. Stir the wet ingredients together in a small bowl.  Toss the nuts and berries into the dry ingredients until they are flour-coated. 

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.  Gently fold in the wet ingredients and stir just until dough forms (dough will be slightly lumpy). 

Spoon batter into a 6-muffin greased standard-sized 3" muffin pan.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick or slim knife inserted into the center emerges clean.  Take all the muffins out of the hot pan and serve warm. 

Muffins may be frozen after cooling and thawed each morning for breakfast.