Whole Grain Muffins

Drizzling with chocolate sauce served its purpose. 

Some of my colleagues keep complaining about how difficult it is to find low fat mighty snacks around. They crave something at breaks and reach for the nearest bar of chocolate and crumple away the wrap in seconds with a sense of regret every time. Such an emotional reaction makes sense because they are still hungry after eating up a whole bar and besides they end up with a big number of unwanted calories at the end of the day. Since they are all well-aware of this fact, they immediately pick up the crumpled wrap back from the bin, straighten it well and use their microscopic vision to see the table at the back cover listing the fat and calories in the product and find out how many calories they've consumed. However, if they are careless enough to avoid adjusting the frequency and quantity of what they consume during the day, they just go to bed at night in contentment but seconds later they start to make an overall fitness plan to burn off those calories. Well, whether these reactions may sound familiar to you or not, many women need to find new or different low fat healthy foods they can enjoy as breakfast, for instance. So using all in the drawers and cupboards, I came up with these low fat spicy whole grain muffins. The smell and flavour of cinnamon ginger combination filled up the whole house and turned it into a home once again. Anyway, I took the muffins to my colleagues the next day and they all loved it. I accomplished a mini-goal and the last touch was drizzling with chocolate sauce to reward myself. 

   Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup low fat milk
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• ground cinnamon and ginger

For the Chocolate Sauce
1/2 cup powdered chocolate

2 tablespoons cocoa
1cup milk 

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1/2 tablespoon low fat butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

• 
  
• Directions (Muffins)
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and lightly grease or line with paper baking cups 23/4-inch muffin cups. 
2. In a large bowl, blend together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt. 
3. In a medium bowl, beat the egg, milk, butter and sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla extract.
4. Combine the two mixtures, blending until the dry ingredients are moistened. 
5. Fill the muffin cups about three-quarters full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 
6. Cool completely on a wire rack. 

   
   

   Directions (Chocolate Sauce)

   
   

   In a small pan heat milk, flour, cocoa and sugar stirring constantly. Bring to the boil and continue to stir until all of the sugar has been dissolved.

   Add powdered chocolate (or chocolate chunks in small pieces) and butter to the pan of milk, flour, cocoa and sugar and stir.

   Remove the pan from the heat and stir the sauce until the chocolate and butter have melted and all the ingredients have blended together.

   Serve the chocolate sauce immediately while it is still warm.

   Tip: You can make the chocolate sauce and store it in a fridge.  If you have any muffins left over, individually wrap them, put them in freezer bags and freeze for up to three weeks. If you double wrap, you'll keep them from taking on the taste of other foods in the freezer.