Wednesday 17 January 2018

Apple and Raisin Muffins


Although I've lost a lot of weight over the last 5 years, I'm still a few kilograms short of getting into the 'healthy' BMI range, and I know that keeping weight off is going to be a lifelong struggle for me. Acknowledging that I'm always going to have to be careful about how much I eat means I'm still interested in TV programmes about weight loss, especially if cooking and providing recipes is involved. I'm watching Tom Kerridge's  current series (Lose Weight for Good) with interest, as he's also dealing, to some extent, with the psychological barriers to losing weight, as well as claiming to produce tastier low calorie recipes, using his knowledge and experience as a Michelin starred chef.

In view of all that, I really expected to like these Apple and Raisin Muffins, even though, in general, I don't like using low-calorie sweeteners in place of sugar. In his recipe, Tom reduces the sugar and fat content by using just a little honey, low-calorie sweetener and mashed bananas. He briefly cooks the apples in caramelised honey and adds spices and roasted sesame oil to give a boost to the flavour.

As I've used it in the past, and was relatively happy with it, I decided to buy Truvia (a no-calorie sweetener made from Stevia) to use as a sweetener, as it seems more natural to me than the other forms of sweetener available. Guided by the information on the pack, I used two teaspoons of Truvia, equivalent to 6 teaspoons of sugar. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. One point to note about the recipe is that you need to cook the apples in the honey ahead of any other preparation, as they take a while to cool down. Apart from this stage, the recipe is fairly standard and simple to follow. The muffins produced rose well and looked really good.

Unfortunately the looks promised much more than the muffins actually delivered! I found the texture quite stodgy, and the muffins stuck really firmly to the paper cases, to the extent that quite a bit of the muffin was lost (unless you want to scrape the case for every last crumb). I could have overlooked this if the flavour had been better, but I found the muffins quite bland; I couldn't taste the spices at all, even though I could still smell them in the baked muffin. In addition to that, the presence of the sesame oil was more of a scent than a flavour - after the first mouthful, I didn't really notice it. The pieces of apple were well flavoured, but didn't make up for the blandness of the crumb.

It's difficult to assess the claim that these are low calorie - 190 calories per muffin - as it's generally only muffins that claim to be healthy (and often found on diet and healthy eating websites) that give a calorie count. The nearest basic apple muffin recipe I could find, with no claims to reduced fat or sugar, contained 250 calories per muffin, but I'm afraid, even with a 20% reduction in calorie content, these disappointing muffins weren't worth the calories. 190 calories is quite a big chunk out of a restricted calorie diet, although I think Tom was suggesting eating them for breakfast, not as an extra treat. If you do want a treat there are a lot of tastier ways of using that number of calories - most involving chocolate, I have to say!


6 comments:

Phil in the Kitchen said...

Interesting. Since pretty much everyone I know has a profound interest in weight control recipes they've persuaded me to try out a few of TK's lower calorie ideas in the last few weeks, although I haven't tried this particular muffin. The results have been pretty mixed. I get that he's trying to keep people interested by packing in huge amounts of flavour but the results are sometimes a long way from subtle or interesting. And he's never going to convince me of the virtues of squirty cream. I've made quite a few low calorie muffins over the last few years and they almost all stick firmly to the cases.

Suelle said...

Interesting comments, Phil. Several of my friends are trying the book too, with mixed results.

Snowy said...

I quite agree that low calorie muffins always stick to their cases! I've tried several recipes and had the same problems. My friend bought TK's book and like you, she's had mixed results with the recipes. I've been trying a few of the Hairy Bikers' recipes from their Diet book, and so far they have been tasty.

WannieWoo said...

i've just taken mine out of the oven after 30 mins not 20 and they are still gooey and uncooked.. i have tried them for another 10 and some are some aren't cooked .. as others have said they are firmly stuck to the muffin case ... - flavour isnt the best so in my opinion not the best muffin recipe but i am no expert on muffins..

Unknown said...

Just tried this recipe and they came out really well on 20 mins. I thought the taste was representative of the ingredients, however as previous posts quite a bit of muffin stuck to the case.

Unknown said...

Got the cookbook yesterday and after seeing the pictures of them I went to bed thinking of having them for breakfast.it didn't work that way but nevertheless it is 16.32 and I just taken 12 muffins ( and little cake as had some mixture left over) and I have to say I am impressed. Like for someone that doesn't bake or cook much instructions were easy to follow ingredients easy to access and I have to say after making blueberry pancakes this morning and chicken marinatig red wine I think his cookbook is going to be popular in my household 😋