Simple Sweet Cherry Walnut Muffins

Hello again!  Have you been enjoying Summer's bountiful supply of produce like I have?!  These past few weeks I have been frequenting our local Farmer's Market each Thursday.  The produce is so fresh and very inexpensive.   My only problem is having a smaller than average fridge, which continues to drive me nuts, but has also made me a pro at finding creative uses for everything before it goes bad :-)

I am slightly obsessed with fruit, and it doesn't last long around here... but, I did have a bag of cherries that I wasn't consuming quickly enough.  So, being a muffin lover, I adapted a few of my tried and true muffin recipes and came up with this one for cherry walnut muffins... I simply had to share it with all of you!

Simple Sweet Cherry Walnut Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup whole oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup pitted, chopped fresh black sweet cherries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400° F. Spray 6 muffin cups with non-stick spray.
Combine the flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon in a medium size bowl. Set aside.
In a smaller bowl, mix together the applesauce, milk, egg, and vanilla.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry to combine.  Then add the walnuts and cherries to the batter and stir to incorporate.
Spoon batter into the prepared 6 muffin cups and fill each to the very top.  You should not have any batter leftover.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown on top and cooked through.  Let cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes.

Enjoy warm or at room temperature!

These muffins made my apartment smell delightful.  They have the perfect amount of sweetness, the oats and walnuts add a nice texture, and did I mention that they are quite healthy?!   I always replace the oil with unsweetened applesauce when making breakfast muffins, and try to keep the added sugar to a minimum.  You'll never miss all that sugar when you have the juicy sweetness of the cherries in every bite!

If you don't have cherries on hand, or you plain don't like them, you can make these guilt-free muffins using almost any other kind of fruit... blueberries are always wonderful, but I could also see these being delicious with chopped fresh peaches, which are also in season right now!

Happy baking :-)

Librarian turned Foodie