Sugarless Apple Muffins

Last year, on a whim, I decided to stop eating sugar. I love sweets and although I am certainly not overweight and have no health problems, related to sugar consumption, I thought it would be a beneficial experiment health-wise and I was also curious if I could do it. Initially it was only for a day, then a week and now it has been more than six months. 

I'm not religious about not eating sugar and my restrictions apply only to processed sugar, by which I mean that I eat a lot of fruits and dried fruits; it's not a carbohydrate restricting diet, just an abstinence from packed sugar as much as possible.

Even before summer last year, I rarely ate store-bought sweets, my morning coffee was accompanied mostly by home-made desserts. Lately I've been experimenting with my own recipes, replacing sugar with dried fruits. I should mention, that I am not a proponent of artificial sweeteners and I believe in reducing the craving and need for sweet taste by reducing the consumption of sweet taste. I can confirm, that my receptors for sweet have actually changed during these months and I can taste sweetness much more acutely.

I came up with these apple muffins last week and this is my second batch, husband polished most of the first one himself, and he hasn't been on my sugar-free regime, so it should be a testament, that they are delicious enough :)

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 40 g sunflower oil
• 100 g yogurt / sour cream
• 150 g / average apple chopped
• 100 g dried fruits (25 g of each raisins, cranberries, dates, plums)
• 120 g flour
• 5 g baking powder
• pinch of salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove

Preparation:

Beat slightly the egg, add the yogurt and vegetable oil, mix. Add the dried fruits (cut the dates and plums into small pieces) and the apple, chopped into small pieces. Finally mix in the flour with baking powder, pinch of salt and spices.

Distribute the batter into 12 muffin forms and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for approx. 25 min. Serve with hot coffee or tea.