Healthy Pumpkin Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

 The first thing I should clear up is that my name is not Gertrude.   I should also clear up that I use the term "with" in my blog title very loosely- I think "cooking against Gertrude" would be a more suitable name.  You see, Gertrude is the name my roommates and I have bestowed upon our janky, outdated oven that seemingly peacefully sits in a nook in our even more janky and outdated kitchen.  In the first few days in our new (new in the sense that it was new in our lives, of course) house, all seemed good and dandy until we actually tried to USE the oven.  After a few early traumatic baking experiences that I will go into much more detail about later, I have learned to accept Gertrude for who she is in attempt to appease her hotheaded attitude that attempts to foil my plan of creating both delicious and photogenic culinary masterpieces. In my next few posts, I will explain that various challenges that arrise when cooking with Gertrude .
            Challenge number 1:  how do we know when the oven is preheated? Upon turning the oven to "bake", a small red light  turns on.... means it is preheating, right? That would be logical. But then, the light switches off a few seconds later.... I'm sorry, but this oven could not possibly preheated in the span of 2 seconds.     Alas, Gertrude is a mysterious one......she leaves it up to the lucky baker (aka me) to find out when she is ready to rock'n'roll.   Luckily, the oven radiates enormous amounts of heat, so when it hurts to touch the outside of the oven I usually know its ready to go.  Definitely a reliable method- right? Unfortunately, it is sort of important that I get it right, and I will explain why. As a little side note, I run A LOT, so I can pretty much compare anything in the world to running- yes, I am about to equate my oven to going on a nice run (a little irony there).  You see, sometimes when coaches are trying to motivate athletes to go on a run (usually over winter when it is deathly cold outside), they say "the first few steps out the door are always the hardest".  I maybe wouldn't go so far as to say ALWAYS, because I have taken some pretty darn hard steps nowhere near the beginning of  the run, but that statement is true to some extent. Think about it, in those first few steps you are making your body go from completely stationary to moving at speeds ranging from 5(I would hope) to 16 (hah, I wish) miles per hour! Anyone with basic physics knowledge can agree that going from 0 miles per hour to 16 miles per hour takes more energy than just staying there.  The same goes for Gertrude: she is going to be working her little granny burners off to get to a temperature of 350 so I can bake my...... lets say, cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake (uhhhh healthy muffins,I mean).  Once she's there, she is fine, but since Gertrude is lazy and doesn't like that heating up process, she becomes agitated and decides to channel all that extra energy she is expending to turn my beautiful cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake into a BURNT cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake.  There are few things that can go wrong when you combine cookie dough, peanut butter and chocolate, but this is one of them.
         Speaking of peanut butter and chocolate, I like both of them.... a lot. I also like pumpkin... a lot.   But I try to eat each in healthy forms.  For instance, I have recently discovered that mixing a few chocolate chips in your old-fashioned oatmeal is quite possibly one of the most delicious ways to start the day. I thought, what if I combined my three weaknesses... peanut butter, pumpkin and chocolate (or in this case, white chocolate) into one somewhat healthy food?  Is that possible?  You tell me.
         When coming up with this recipe, I tried to make various substitutions fromm typical full-fat, full-sugar pumpkin bread so I can feel a little less bad about eating it.  For instance, some whole wheat flour is subbed for white flour to add a little bit extra fiber and protein.  From my experience, vital wheat gluten helps the consistency of whole wheat baked goods to keep it delicious and airy (opposed to a dense brick).  Next I was able to reduce the amount of oil by subbing in peanut butter and nonfat vanilla greek yogurt (both of these changes also add protein).  Finally, I was able to reduce the amount of sugar by adding honey and stevia powder.  There we have it, three of my favorite foods stuffed in one muffin sized form (shown below in my first attempt at food photography!).


Healthy Pumpkin Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour 

1/2 cup bread flour

1 tbs vital wheat gluten

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp allspice 

1.5 cup pumpkin 

1/3 cup nonfat vanilla greek yogurt 

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tbs honey

2 tbs canola oil
2 eggs

1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 tsp stevia 

1/2 cup white chocolate chips 

Preparation 

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2. mix together whole wheat flour, bread flour, vital wheat gluten, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and allspice in small bowl 

3. beat together pumpkin, greek yogurt, peanut butter, honey, eggs and brown sugar in large bowl 

4. slowly combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients and combine until smooth 

5. add white chocolate chips 

6. divide batter in muffin tin, prepared with liners. The batter will go close to the top of the cups, but this is necessary to create full looking muffins. 

7.  bake for 20 minutes, or until tops start to turn golden brown.