Trick and Treat Muffins

bluemoon downunder's Note:

Muffins designed to trick children into eating some fruit and vegetables. Children think they are having a delicious, moist chocolate treat. In fact they are eating low fat muffins containing apples and beetroot. And when do you confess your deception? Perhaps at their twenty-first birthday party? Or when they leave home, when you give them the recipe? Or if there are other younger children still being deceived, perhaps this is best shared privately. Like the truth about Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Adapted from a recipe on the Simply Great Meals Recipe Club website.

• Total Time: 40 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 12

Yield: 12.0 muffins

• 1 ¼ cups self raising flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tablespoons cocoa
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 425 g beetroots , well drained, sliced
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 (200 g) container low-fat yogurt , natural
• 2 egg whites
• 2 granny smith apples , peeled and grated

Directions:

1. Mix the self raising flour, wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa and sugar together in a large bowl.
2. Puree the beetroot with the oil, egg whites and yoghurt in a food processor or with a hand held blender.
3. Add the beetroot mixture and grated apple to the dry ingredients, and mix until just combined.
4. Spoon the mixture into a greased 12 x ½ cup muffin tray, and bake in a preheated oven at 180ºC for 20 minutes. Stand for 5 minutes before turning out.
5. Lightly dust with icing sugar to serve.

Reviews

[Lalaloula]

Mmm, these are great! Very fudgy and yummy! Imade half the recipe and got 10 muffins out of that, which were enjoyed immensely. I used 1/4 c spelt flour and the rest whole spelt flour. Since I like my muffins chocolatey, I decided to add 1/8 c mini semi sweet morsels and in the end that was the perfect amount for me. Had I not used those, I think the muffins would have been more of a health food type muffin, this way they were decadent.
Since I was out of eggs, I used a flax egg and I also took one of the reviewers advise and pureed the apple with the beets. That worked out nicely.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for sharing this great recipe with us, bluemoon!
Made and reviewed for the Romantic event in the photo forum February 2012.

[VegSocialWorker]

These muffins turned out good. They did not taste like beets, but did not taste like much else either. I think that next time I make these I'll add a bit more sugar and cocoa and maybe some nuts. Hubby liked them. We have been having them all week with fruit for breakfast on the run. Thanks for posting this, will try again.

[melting pot]

Er-it mostly tastes like beetroot. Maybe it'll taste better later - i've already left them overnight. THey get 5 stars from me for a WONDERFUL texture though. Maybe mine just had too much bettroot.