For an entire week over Thanksgiving, every single breakfast consisted of an enormous muffin.  You know the type – they come in packs of 12 from the big warehouse stores and are the size of grain silos.  I was particularly fond of the chocolate – chocolate chip variety, as was my daughter who cried “cake!” every time she saw them.  Yep.  They’re cake.  Let’s not fool ourselves.  And my thighs hold testament to the week of cake breakfasts.  But upon returning home to a fridge full of beets, I figured maybe there was a way to continue the simple, easy to grab breakfast cake without making such a dent in the diet.  Thus beet muffins.  I made a big double batch of these, dividing it between blueberry beet muffins and chocolate chip beet muffins.  Both are great.  And despite the fact that these are loaded with root vegetables, they are light and cakey and very yummy.  Granted, these are not completely guilt-free by any stretch of the imagination, they are packed with some good things that will carry you through the morning…or any time of the day you choose to nosh.

1 1/4 c whole wheat flour*

1 1/4 c all purpose flour*

1 1/2 c rolled oats

1 T baking powder

2 1/2 t baking soda

2 t cinnamon

1 t salt

1/2 c Splenda**

1/2 c granulated sugar**

1 c vegetable oil

2 c unsweetened applesauce

2 eggs

1/2 c water

1 c raw beets, peeled and shredded

1 c blueberries or chocolate chips

 

Preheat oven to 350.  In one bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, combine the oil, applesauce, eggs, and water until they are thoroughly blended.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until everything is just combined.  Fold in the beets and blueberries or chocolate chips.  Scoop into muffin tins that are either lined with paper liners or greased.  Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean.  For jumbo muffins, this was about 35 minutes.  Regular sized muffins would cook in about 15.

This recipe yielded 12 jumbo muffins or 24 regular sized.

*Feel free to use all whole wheat or all AP flour as you have available.

**If you don’t want to use Splenda, using 1 c of normal granulated sugar works just dandy.