Peanut Butter Protein Muffins

Peanut Butter Protein Muffins

I’m always looking for more peanut butter recipes; anything that focuses in on peanut butter without becoming a Weight Watchers points nightmare piques my interest. So even though these were called Peanut Butter Protein Muffins,  which meant that something was being prioritized along with flavor, I gave them a shot. Peanut butter does that to me. I would follow it almost anywhere.

I didn’t do my usual flour/wheat germ swap in this one, because wheat germ was already in the recipe. I did, however, forego spelt flour for my old friend whole wheat white, which went into a bowl with the wheat germ, oats, baking powder, and cinnamon. I used a full teaspoon instead of a quarter, because I don’t think a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon is all that different from no cinnamon at all.

dry ingredients

I whisked.

dry ingredients, whisked

Dave was in the kitchen too, making spaghetti sauce in the crockpot.

Dave stirring spaghetti sauce

I think it was this that inspired him to investigate changing the wiring in our kitchen so the toaster, crock pot, stand mixer, and microwave don’t have to share the same outlet.

Next I stirred together applesauce and peanut butter.  It seemed odd to mix these two ingredients together but I did it.

peanut butter and applesauce

Then it was time for the honey. A friend at work recently picked up some local Brooklyn honey for me, from a mutual friend’s fantastic gourmet cheese shop called Eastern District, and I’d been waiting for a chance to try it in a recipe. Amusingly, the combination of the color of the honey and the type of jar the honey-maker used made it look exactly like a urine sample.

urine sample honey

In fact, when it was sitting on my desk at work, someone I work with actually thought it WAS a urine sample. I don’t know what it says about my character that someone who knows me thinks I would do a urine sample at work and then leave it on my desk, but it can’t be good.

I poured all of that into the peanut butter/applesauce mixture, along with dark brown sugar, an egg, and some vanilla bean paste. I stirred.

adding sugar, egg, and vanilla

stirred

Last thing to go in was Greek yogurt.

adding Greek yogurt

Okay, I give in. I have to say something about all the shadows in these pictures. My photography challenge is that I bake in a kitchen that only has one source of natural light, a small window over the sink. I tend to bake at night, and so I use the flash. This time I was baking on a semi-sunny afternoon, and I’d recently read something that said to use the Aperture Priority setting on the camera to avoid needing a flash. So this entry (and the next one, unfortunately) were my experiments with that, and I have to say I am not pleased with the results. I have shadows on everything. I tried moving the bowls to right in front of the window, holding them with one hand and taking my pictures with the other, but all that did was minimize the shadows, sometimes.

So I apologize for the shadows. Just pretend I’m baking in an exciting shadowy bakers’ lair.

Once the yogurt was stirred in, I dumped the dry ingredients into the liquid, and stirred just until combined.

adding dry ingredients

batter

I scooped it into muffin cups.

batter in cups

These baked for about 17 minutes, then spent another 5 in the pan, then moved to  wire rack. They smelled like peanut butter. Did I mention that I like peanut butter?

muffins in tin, baked

muffin in tin

muffins on rack

And peanut buttery they are. They really come into their own a day after baking, maybe the flavor gets even better after that. I just ate one for breakfast right now, and the flavor is definitely stronger.

I think these are good. Not magnificent, but good, and satisfying, and a good hearty breakfast muffin that leaves a nice flavor on your tongue. The texture works too, dense in a good way with a nice soft crumb. And they’re good for you too! I will add these to the peanut butter repertoire.

peanut butter protein muffins

PEANUT BUTTER PROTEIN MUFFINS RECIPE

(I didn’t change anything except the type of flour and the amount of cinnamon, so I’m not posting my own version.)

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