Kids Make "Healthy" Blueberry Muffins

No processed sugar in these muffins

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

If you're trying to reduce the saturated fat and processed sugar in your diet, these muffins definitely fall into the category of "healthy." Orange juice, apple sauce and the blueberries lend a bit of sweetness. And for fat, we have canola oil, which contains even more mono-unsaturated fatty acids than olive oil.

But we can't advertise muffins as "healthy" to the kids in our food appreciation classes. The last time we tried, they turned on their heels and ran back onto the playground. No, the best way to market these muffins, we found, is to just have the kids make them. Through the magic of hands-on participation, kids somehow overlook the fact that in this case, a delicious muffin doesn't have to knock them over with its sugar content.

The only trick to these muffins is assembling a somewhat unconventional list of ingredients. For instance, you may not have oat bran--full of vitamins and fiber--or whole wheat pastry flour on your pantry shelf. But we found these readily available at the local Whole Foods. The blueberries in this case were the frozen variety, a stock item in most supermarkets.

Start by whisking together your dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl: 1 1/2 cups oat bran, 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

In a separate bowl, beat 2 large eggs, then mix in 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce, 1/2 cup orange juice, 2 tablespoons canola oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl, just until everything is incorporated. Then fold in 1 1/4 cups blueberries.

Grease a standard muffin tin (we used cooking spray) and spoon in the batter. Scatter about 1/4 cup rolled oats over the tops of the muffins and give them a gentle pat. Then place the tin in a 400 degree oven for 18 minutes.

The finished muffins turn out light, moist and bursting with blueberries. Pour yourself a tall glass of cold buttermilk to wash it down.

Note: You can also add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnut pieces to the muffin batter for a bit of crunch.

What's for Breakfast: Blueberry Muffin Square

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

This "blueberry muffin square" is part of what has become "homemade" muffin Tuesdays at my daughter's elementary school here in the District of Columbia. Yes, our "lunch ladies," some of whom have worked 25 years or more in school cafeterias, do know how to cook things from scratch.

The "muffin" is made with corn meal, flour, sugar and frozen blueberries at the bottom of a stainless hotel pan, then cut into squares. I've tried it and it's pretty good. But just in case there wasn't enough starch on the breakfast tray, someone in the Chartwells home office decided to add "oven-baked hash browns"--or so said the online menu. As you can see, these became the ever-popular tater tots.

One other thing you might notice: although our school has a dish washing machine and normally serves meals on re-usable plastic trays, some meals are served on Styrofoam. Turns out there's a reason for that. Blueberries tend to stain the plastic, according to the kitchen manager, and kids won't eat off trays with blueberry stains.

The "Healthy Schools Act" approved by last year by the D.C. Council would have schools discontinue Styrofoam and adopt more eco-friendly trays at some point in the future.

What's for Breakfast: French Toast with Yogurt

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Here's a different way to serve French toast: dressed with yogurt and blueberries. It sure beats the high-fructose "syrup" the D.C. Public Schools served in the past.

Chartwells at its menu site called this French toast "homemade" and it did look quite a bit different than the processed French toast strips that arrived at school frozen from a distant factory. I didn't have a chance to ask the kitchen ladies how it was prepared, but I imagine they could have dipped the bread in batter and baked it in the oven.

Of course this wouldn't really work for the many schools in the District of Columbia that have switched to serving breakfast in the classroom and no longer serve breakfast in the cafeteria. But those are only schools where 40 percent or more of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Their breakfast menu called for turkey ham and egg on a whole wheat English muffin, or the same breakfast that was served in my daughter's elementary school on Tuesday.


One of the interesting questions in school cafeterias is how you eat something like this French toast without a knife and fork. Our schools only offer a plastic "spork" as eating utensil. What I was unable to capture with my camera was the boy who was eating his toast smeared with yogurt like an open-faced sandwich--with his hands. In this photo, you see that my daughter asked for her yogurt on the side. She also used her hands to eat the toast, since it is otherwise very difficult to cut.

Notice also that there's been a switch in yogurt, from a fruit-filled yogurt served in sealed, individual four-ounce containers made by Upstate Farms, to an organic, vanilla-flavored yogurt from Stonyfield Farm. The Stonyfield yogurt has slightly less sugar in it--but it's still a lot, 14 grams (2.5 teaspoons) in a half-cup serving, the same, ounce-for-ounce, as Classic Coke.

The question is still on the table: Can't anyone make a decent yogurt for kids without so much sugar?


This was the alternate breakfast: a parfait of yogurt, homemade granola and canned peaches. You have to love the presentation.

What's for Breakfast: Waffle with Blueberries

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The menu posted by Chartwells on its website called this "warm whole grain waffles with organic yogurt dipping sauce." It also called for a "locally grown peach" and apple juice.

As you can see, the waffle is dressed with yogurt and blueberries, no "dipping sauce" involved. I was told in the cafeteria that this is the same raspberry yogurt served on a fairly regular basis. And as best as I can determine from the package, there is no indication that it is "organic." I'm quite sure it would not be organic, since organic dairy is not at all easy to come by and the second ingredient in this yogurt is cane sugar.

Nevertheless, this is quite a departure from waffles served in the past with a syrup made of high-fructose corn syrup. And how often do you see whole blueberries--one of the planet's healthiest foods--on an elementary school cafeteria tray?(I don't know if they arrived fresh or frozen.) Other than the really high sugar content of the yogurt--more than in Mountain Dew, ounce for ounce--this seems like a genius way to draw kids into healthier options for breakfast.