Gingerbread Muffins

There's so much to love about these quick and easy muffins. That deep molasses sweetness, just like hot squares of fresh gingerbread. That they're low-fat and low-calorie (thanks to half the butter in typical muffin recipes) yet still keep a moist and delicate crumb. Plus, they're made in a flash with a few pantry ingredients. But most of all, they just taste good. What's NOT to love?

~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~

COMPLIMENTS!

• "YUMMY." ~ Roberta
• "They are wonderful!" ~ Anonymous
• "... delicious!" ~ Sabina

BEST RECIPES!

• Gingerbread Muffins Made the List!
• Best Recipes of 2003

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Muffin Wakeup Call

BZZZZZZ. The alarm buzzed with insistence until groping fingers located the snooze button. Still half-asleep, my mind began to sketch out a typical busy Saturday. Exercise! I promised. Then stops at the grocery, the shoe man, the car wash. A birthday present for a friend, flowers for a neighbor with cancer.

I checked the weather with just-opened eyes. The sky was unmistakably threatening, the wind unseasonably fierce. Was it February or almost June? Those sounded like blizzard winds!

Muffins! I thought. Postponing the day’s busy-ness, I jumped from bed and headed for the kitchen where I knew the pickings were slim. But what about that recipe for gingerbread muffins, a family hand-me-down? Surely those few ingredients were on hand?

Thirty minutes later, warm muffins and hot coffee were on the table. Ah, there’s nothing better than a busy Saturday kicked off by muffins-as-motivation.

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GINGERBREAD MUFFINS

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 30 minutes for mini muffins, 40 for regular muffins
Makes 24 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) salted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
• 1 cup flour, fluffed to aerate before measuring or 125g
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt

Heat oven to 350F/175C. Spray the muffin tins.

Place the water and butter in a small microwave dish (such as a Pyrex measuring cup). Heat them in the microwave in ten-second increments until the water boils and the butter melts.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg well in a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and molasses and mix well. Add the water and butter mixture and stir well. Add the remaining ingredients. Without touching the wet mixture below, lightly stir together the dry ingredients to combine, then stir them into the wet mixture until just combined. (Over-stirring the wet and dry mixtures will create holes in the baked muffins.)

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake for 10 minutes for mini muffins and 20 minutes for regular muffins. Remove from the oven and cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.

ALANNA'S TIPS No baking spray? No problem. Just mix your own, or use this amazing DIY Substitute for Baker's Joy. The batter will be quite thin, don't worry, it will bake up just fine. The method of mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients is unorthodox but I've used it successfully with cookies and quick breads for many years. If you like, however, stir the dry ingredients separately before adding to the butter-molasses mixture. For a recent batch, I stirred finely chopped dried apricots into the batter. Yummy! Currants or raisins would work too.

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Mini Muffin/Regular Muffin: 57/114 Calories; 2/4g Tot Fat; 1/3g Sat Fat; 13/27mg Cholesterol; 81/189mg Sodium; 9/18g Carb; 0g Fiber; 1/2g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS Old Points 1/2 & PointsPlus 2/3 & SmartPoints 2/5 & Freestyle 2/5. MY APOLOGIES (2014) Weight Watchers who count points, my apologies. A careful reader, Sabina, questioned the point calculation for this muffin recipe. I re-calculated the points and sure enough, using the system I use now for calculating points versus the one I used back in 2003 when this recipe was first published, the calculations turned out much different. The nutrition information and Weight Watchers points have been updated.

Adapted from my cousin Diane's muffin recipe published in our family cookbook

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A Menu

~ Cold-Brewed Coffee ~
Alex's French Eggs
Baked Bacon
Gingerbread Muffins (recipe above)

more breakfast recipes

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More Breakfast Specialties

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~ more breakfast & brunch recipes ~

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More Family Recipes - Thanks, Everybody!

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~ more family & reader recipes ~
~ Kitchen Parade by Shirley ~
my mother's recipes

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Shop Your Pantry First

(helping home cooks save money on groceries)

~ molasses ~

~ All Recipes, By Ingredient ~
~ How to Save Money on Groceries ~

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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