What recipe do you consider "whole food cake or muffin" mix.
How do you make it "whole food"; just from scratch?

I make it all from scratch..mixes just tend to have too many preservatives and "junk". Whole food mixes tend to be too expensive. I usually take most bread or muffin recipes and make substitutions to make them healthier

For grains, I use whole wheat pastry flour, or whole wheat flour with a bit of vital wheat gluten (this is when I am baking breads or pizzas).

Sweeteners...Sometimes I use honey, then adjust other liquids. Most of the time I will just use regular sugar, but cut the amount.

For fats, sometimes I will sub half applesauce, half butter. Sometimes just subbing straight out with olive oil works fine, too. I don't use margarine of any kind. I find that I can cut the amount as well, depending on the recipe, and use my non-stick bakeware.

Here's one of the ways I do it:


Blueberry Orange Muffins

* 2 tablespoons oil
* 1 T. apple cider vinegar
* 1T. ground flax
* 2 T. wheat germ
* 1/3 cup maple syrup
* 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
* 1/2 cup orange juice
* 2 tsp vanilla
* 2 cups spelt flour
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp grated orange peel
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix the ground flax, wheat germ, apple cider vinegar and orange juice in a small bowl.

Cream together the oil, maple syrup, applesauce, and vanilla.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, orange peel, and salt.

Mix the dry ingredients into the liquid, add the flax mixture and combine.

Fold in the blueberries.

Bake in muffin tins for 30 minutes, or until done.

I tend to do all my muffin recipes with whole wheat flour and use lower fat recipes. Haven't had one turn out bad yet.

Yeast breads are a different story since the different protein content can make the required gluten formation turn out in unexpected ways. Usually I use half and half bread flour and whole wheat for that, since I don't bake breads very often. I may try RosieKate's tip next time.

Anne

This is my standard recipe, I've played around with it to make all sorts of variations:

^^Nice recipe! Is it yours? If not, where's it from?

I have used all sorts of squashes in addition to pumpkin too (like acorn or butternut) and they work fine!

Shananigans, that recipe looks great! Do you have any idea of the calories per muffin?

I use sugar in this recipe (I've tried with 1/2 splenda, but I abhor splenda and won't use it any more) but it is really fantastic: tastes like chocolate cake. It makes for a nice snack with a schmear of yogurt margarine (or whatever you like to put on muffins).

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
5tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
½ cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup shredded zucchini
¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, baking power and salt; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, splenda and eggs, and beat until well blended. Add the applesauce and vanilla . Stir in the zucchini and then add the dry ingredients. Mix until just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips and spoon the mixture into the loaf pan.

Bake in preheated over for 50-60 minutes.

I cut it into 12 slices for about 150 cals/slice.

That recipe started as the "Brown Sugar Banana Bread" from my 1001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes cookbook, but it's been tinkered with a lot to replace the eggs and milk and refined sugar and white flour. So, it's pretty much a different recipe.

Never figured out the cals/muffin, but that would be easy enough (if a bit time consuming) to do with fitday or something. If I had to guess I'd say between 120 - 140.

Wow! Thanks for the wonderful info! I will have to print this thread.
I have seen ground flax seeds at walmart and they have whole wheat flour I will have to try that!
Maybe this weekend!

Do check to see if they have whole wheat pastry flour and not just regular whole wheat. The pastry flour is much finer and made from softer young wheat, much better for making muffins. The regular whole wheat flour is usually too coarse, better for regular breads or rolls. Even for those I end up mixing in some amount of another kind of softer flour, it tends to make a tough and not very elastic dough on its own.

Mmm.. those sound good!..

Thanks, they are!

Here's an unconventional cake:

"Healthy" Fruit and Vegetable Cake

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups raw shredded carrots
1 cup raw shredded beets
3 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup or agave nectar
1 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1 cup blended pineapple
1 very ripe mashed banana
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 T. ground flax
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped dates, dried mango or whole raisins


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flour and baking soda in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat maple syrup (or agave), apple cider vinegar, ground flax, pineapple, banana, and applesauce together.

Stir in the vanilla and mix well.

Combine the wet and dry flour mixtures along with the chopped walnuts and mix.

Add the shredded carrots and beets, mixing well.

Spread in a nonstick 9 X 9 baking pan.

Bake 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.