I’m trying to find a muffin recipe with applesauce or yogurt instead of fat, no sugar, or salt, and something that uses a healthier flour than white or all purpose.
I can’t even find something like that on the Heart and Stroke foundation website.
Anybody know of a recipe like that?
I’m not sure you’re going to manage it. You can usually get away with a substitution or maybe two, but you’re basically talking about substituting every ingredient…and in a baked good, no less (baking is largely chemistry, most of the ingredients have a purpose beyond just flavor).
But if you want to attempt the stunt anyway, just do all the substitutions: Applesauce for fats is covered everywhere on the web, Splenda will bake as well as sugar (replace by VOLUME, not weight), and muffins are largely flour-insensitive, so just toss in whatever you want as long as it’s not listed as low gluten or gluten free. If you’re using a non-gluten flour, you can try adding an extra egg white…but mileage will vary.
Salt, though, you’re going to have trouble with. If you leave it out, it probably won’t affect the taste much, but it’s going to mess with your texture and rise. I’d leave it be (remember to reduce it by the amount in the applesauce, though).
Wow, thanks so much for the advice! 
Very helpful.
so you’re trying to make an apple flavored kitchen sponge?
Applesauce is mostly water. Oil is mostly fat. Fat does not evaporate in the oven near as quickly as water. There will be a change in texture and moisture content that you can not avoid. Expect it and be ready for it.
For the flour, you might try looking at a health food store for different grain flours. There’s a store near me where I can buy flour from about ten different grains, rice, oat, amaranth, etc. When subbing the non white wheat flour, don’t sub the whole amount the first time you make the recipe. Substitute 50% or less. If that works out, you can work up to a 100% substitution.
try using some nice flavorings like almond extract, vanilla, maple flavoring, etc. to mask the off flavors of the Splenda and the applesauce.
Seconding TimeWinder’s suggestion to keep the salt. There’s less than a half a gram of salt in a homemade sweet muffin, and it helps with the chemistry and the flavor too. Flour needs salt to taste good.
If you substitute in any flours with higher gluten contents, be absolutely certain that you stir no more than totally necessary. Leave in lumps. They will cook out. A chewy muffin is a no-good muffin.
I recommend going with pumpkin instead of applesauce: I think it’s naturally sweeter, but some might argue. It’s drier than applesauce, so the texture is better. Just make sure you’re going with pure pumpkin, not pie filling.
What about using barley malt or molasses for sweetener rather than splenda? What about using yogurt?
I haven’t done any yogurt substitutions yet myself, but thinking about it, you’d definitely need to fiddle with the leavening. Yogurt is acidic, so you need to account for that, especially if the original leavening is baking soda. I think molasses is also acidic, but don’t quote me on that. It has a very strong flavor but one that would go well with pumpkin- certainly better than it would go with applesauce.
If you switch to a liquid sweetener and you’re substituting a puree or yogurt for fat, don’t add any additional liquids from the original recipe unless you need it be able to mix the batter.
This one’s pretty good. I add a teaspoon of cinnamon to it and use whole wheat flour. It does use 1/2 cup of oil, but vegetable oil really isn’t that bad for you; and the sugar could be replaced with sweetener or maybe molasses.
What I’d suggest is finding a recipe online that’s close to what you want. It’s less risky than making multiple substitutions to a regular muffin recipe, since someone else has already spent time experimenting with the recipe until they got an edible product… doing it on your own, unless you’re a very experienced baker, would probably land you with a muffin tray full of high-fibre low-fat inedible hockey pucks.
There are tons of websites that revolve around low-fat, sugar-free, whole-grain baking. There are some good muffin recipes on the Bob’s Red Mill site, for example, which are made from their whole-grain cereal mixes and often have little to no fat and sugar - I’ve made this oneusing honey instead of cane juice, and it got the thumbs up from The Boy (who is normally very suspicious of anything that smacks of health food).
Oh, and I’m going to third/fourth/whatever the motion to keep the salt. Salt-free baked goods are absolutely awful… 
I’ve had good luck replacing half the oil in my muffin recipe with applesauce (replacing all of it makes the muffins stick like glue to the pan or paper but tastes ok), all of the sugar with splenda and half the flour with whole wheat, rice or rye flour or rolled oats. Even all of them at once. But. I have never messed with the salt. It doesn’t add enough sodium to the finished product to risk screwing up the chemistry of the baked good.
So I made my muffins. All the while thinking about how great they were going to be and that I’d post some pictures and brag about how lovely they were. I just have a few questions.
How can something seemingly innocent as a muffin be so completely vile? How can something be burnt to a crisp on the outside and still be all gooey on the inside? They were the single worst baked good I’ve ever had the misfortune of tasting. I had to try one, I couldn’t just chuck the whole lot into the trash without even trying it. They were appallingly disgusting.
Maybe my quest will lead me in a different direction. What I am trying to make or find is a healthy little snack. A little bundle of health and flavour that I can have with a salad or a quick snack. Any suggestions?
Kudos to you for admitting defeat.
There are tons of snacks I could suggest, but it would be helpful to know exactly what was it about the muffins that you felt would hit the spot, snack-wise. Is it that you want something a little bit sweet, as long as it’s nutritious and won’t crash your blood sugar in an hour? Or is it that you like the carb-fix, but want to make sure you’re getting a decent amount of fiber? Or something else altogether?
And if it’s specifically muffins that you want, you could always try again, just using a different recipe… remember, not all low-fat low-sugar muffins are created alike.
I made a muffin recipe very similar to this one and it was surprisingly good. Might be closer to what you’re looking for:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Banana-Oat-Bran-Muffins-With-No-Added-Sugar-113840
These are currently in the oven. I added a banana and substituted splenda for sugar.
Success! They are very plain, but they taste/smell like actual food. With a little peanut butter on it, it’s not too shabby! They are definatly something a serious granola mom would make, which is sort of what I was going for.
These whole wheat blueberry muffins are yummy, except way too sweet.
I replaced half the oil with applesauce (according to all the info I could find, that’s the best method) and one egg with ground flax seed per the box instructions. I also took it down to 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Pretty darn good.
Next go-round I’m going to try a little more leavening, as the last batch was a bit dense (not bad, just a bit). If that works, then I’ll try to drop the egg & sugar lower, maybe add some more fiber, etc.
I don’t use much salt, but some is generally needed in baking. However, I hadn’t thought about the salt in the applesauce. I also don’t use fake sugar, so no help there.
Actually, I’ve been craving these for at least a week and haven’t gotten them made. Maybe tonight!
Hey I just realized that there wasn’t any salt in the recipe I used.
Below is my doctored recipe for Zucchini Muffins.
Like others have mentioned, you can just pick a regular recipe, and doctor it up a bit.
Applesauce can be used successfully as a substitute for oil in recipes. The trick is not to replace all the oil; just do part of it. The recipe here originally called for a cup of oil. (Yowza! That’s a lot of fat.) I used one cup less two Tbsp of applesauce, and finished off the cup with oil.
Similarly, I tend to be careful about replacing all of the eggs in a recipe with egg whites. The yolk contains some fat and other properties that, frankly, I think the recipe needs. Looking at the replacement below, I have the feeling that the original called for 3 eggs, since I replaced it with one whole egg and 4 egg whites. That’s a lot of eggs. Sometimes, I just go ahead and use the whole eggs instead, and say the hell with the extra fat from the yolks.
Also, I’m not a huge fan of using all whole wheat. Since this is for a fairly robust and spicy muffin, though, I find it works fine to replace half of the flour with whole wheat pastry flour. This probably wouldn’t be as successful with a muffin that you expect to be light and white. If you’re looking for a whiter muffin, you may want to try white whole wheat flour.
Zucchini Muffins
3 cups flour * 1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini 1 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cups sugar 1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp baking powder 1 cup (less 2 Tbsp) applesauce
3/4 tsp baking soda 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup raisins 1 whole egg
3/4 cup chopped walnuts 4 egg whites
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine flour, zucchini, sugar, salt, baking powder, soda, raisins, nuts, and spices.
In a small bowl, combine the applesauce, oil, and eggs. Pour the applesauce mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well until entirely mixed.
Spray 2 regular sized muffin tins with cooking oil spray. Put 1/4 cup of batter in each muffin cup. Fill any empty cups in the tins halfway full of water.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
Makes 20 muffins.
Missed the editing deadline — my ingredient list got all jumbled up. Let me try that again.
And, sorry, I missed the call to reduce sugar also. That certainly didn’t happen in this recipe. I do think you could safely reduce the amount of salt used, but I wouldn’t recommend omitting it entirely.
Zucchini Muffins
3 cups flour *
2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 cup (less 2 Tbsp) applesauce
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 whole egg
4 egg whites
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine flour, zucchini, sugar, salt, baking powder, soda, raisins, nuts, and spices.
In a small bowl, combine the applesauce, oil, and eggs. Pour the applesauce mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well until entirely mixed.
Spray 2 regular sized muffin tins with cooking oil spray. Put 1/4 cup of batter in each muffin cup. Fill any empty cups in the tins halfway full of water.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
Makes 20 muffins.
I remember my grandmother expressing shock when I said that her best in the world chocolate chip cookies were bad for me.
“Why? They have sugar, butter, eggs and flour. What’s bad with that?”
She lived to 93 and was happy.
So, when you decide to stop messing about and understand that instead of eating two pieces of cardboard, you can eat one piece of something good and actually like it, here is a recipe that makes probably the best muffins you’ll ever eat and still be somewhat healthy. It is similar to what redtail23 posted only half the sugar and twice as many blueberries:
Blueberry Muffins
1 c all-purpose unbleached white flour
1 c whole wheat flour (I use two cups ww and skip the all-purpose)
1/2 c brown sugar (make sure to pack it into the measure)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 c Blueberries
1/2 c melted butter
1/2 c milk
2 eggs (beat them somewhat)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Oven 425F. Cook for 20 minutes.
Toss blueberries in 1 tbsp of flour if using frozen blueberries (recommend the ones from Costco as being the largest and most flavourful). I’ve had more success with frozen.
Stir dry ingredients together.
Mix the wet ingredients together.
Add them together and stir just until all the dry ingredients are absorbed.
Add blueberries.