Orange Date Muffins

I went into a baking frenzy during spring break since I can't cook as much as I used to in my new dorm. I love having muffins to eat on the weekends before going to work at Starbucks and thought these sounded good (plus I had all the ingredients in the house). I got the recipe from Eat Better America, but tweaked it a bit. I didn't have any whole wheat flour, so I used all-purpose flour instead. The muffins tasted good but were heavy, maybe it's because I didn't use any whole wheat flour? I also added some textured vegetable protein. The original recipe is here: Orange Date Muffins.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 cup rice milk
1/3 cup applesauce
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup textured vegetable protein

Get Cookin'

Heat oven to 400°F. Grease bottoms only of 12 regular-size muffin cups ( The directions told me not to use paper baking cups).

Mix flours, baking powder and salt; set aside. In medium bowl, beat brown sugar, orange peel, rice milk, applesauce and egg until well mixed. Stir into flour mixture just until flour is moistened. Fold in dates and textured vegetable protein. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and tops begin to brown.


Notes:
Next time I'd double the amount of protein. I started off with a small amount in case it left a weird texture or taste; it didn't. Since 1/4 cup spread over 12 muffins doesn't give much added protein to a single muffin I want to increase the amount next time I make these.

According to Eat Better America (based on the original recipe), each muffin has 190 calories and 4 grams of protein.