Lemon-Poppy Seed Muffins

  So last year when I was visiting home for my youngest sisters wedding, all of the other sisters had just purchased "The Biggest Loser" cookbooks and were just raving about all of the recipes they had tried and how good they all were.  This interested me since they were healthy, low-calorie recipes, plus, the books were at a steal of a price right then, so I too purchased one.  This past month I have been looking for lemon recipes because of my gigantic lemons on my tree and I want to take advantage of them as much as I can, and I ran into this recipe.  It looked good and I love lemon-poppy seed muffins, so why not.  They were really good.  I doubled the batch and ground up a whole container of the oats so I could make more of them soon.

   Here is the recipe:

1 Cup Whole Grain Oat Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 cup Fat-free, Artificially sweetened Vanilla Yogurt
3 Large Egg Whites
1/3 Cup Honey
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Lemon Extract (or approximately 3 Tbsp of real lemon juice)
1 Tbsp grated lemon peel
2 tsp Poppy Seeds

Directions:  Preheat the oven to 350°.  Coat 20 cups of mini muffins (or 10-12 of regular size) with nonstick spray.  In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process the flour for about 1 minute, or until it is the consistency of all-purpose flour and no coarse grains remain.  Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Sift the mixture twice.

In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, egg whites, honey, vanilla extract, and lemon extract until well mixed.  Stir in the reserved flour mixture until just combined.  Stir in the lemon peel and poppy seeds.  Spoon into the the muffin tins.

Bake for 9-11 minutes (for the mini muffins  11-13 for regular), or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out dry.  Cool on rack 5 minutes and enjoy!!

The mini muffins are about 41 calories!!  My regular muffins are about double the size of my mini muffins so they are only about 80 calories!!  You can't say that about many muffins that taste good!

The cooks for The Biggest Loser suggest if you are going to use lemon juice, to use the real stuff so I tried with these.  I only doubled the amount from the lemon extract (1 tsp) and they weren't too lemony, so I googled and found a few answers you can try (I am going to do the same).  The first was 1/2 tsp lemon extract= approximately 3 tbsp of lemon juice.  The others said to use lemon zest instead because that is where the flavor of lemon extract comes from and double what the extract calls for.  So. . .if you want to try either of these instead of the extract, I think either will be wonderful.  I thought they were great and so did my youngest son.  He ate about 5 of the mini muffins as soon as they came out of the oven and loved them!

To find this original recipe and more from The Biggest Loser, go to: www.biggestloserclub.com/.  (You do have to register as a member if you want to get more recipes.  I will try to post more delicious ones I have tried.  They offer 1 month free, but then you do have to pay a fee.  I am not sure what because I have not joined!)

~Stacy~