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Healthy Gingerbread Muffins

24 reviews / 4.7 average

Gin-ger-bread! Gin-ger-bread! Gin-ger-breeaaaaddd!

Okay, maybe I did just go and make gingerbread in November. Maybe I did and maybe I like it.

Before I get distracted talking about any other life thing, I want to say this: I LOVE THESE MUFFINS. I say it a lot, I know. But these ones are special in that always puffy, always pretty, always have the ingredients on hand and always make the house smell good way. There are hardly any recipes in my life that I make more than a handful of times – the sad truth of life as a food blogger – but these are one of them. They are everything I want in a muffin from September to January.

In addition to being THE CUTEST with all that sparkly sugar on top, they are made healthier with coconut oil (which reminds me, we have some catching up to do because when did coconut oil get completely awesome? ugh, I’m late as usual), whole wheat flour, and no refined sugar – just a hit of real maple syrup and molasses for that sweet, deep, gingerbread-cozy flavor. These muffins are part healthy filling breakfast, part sweet + pretty treat, and part Christmas smells all up in your house.

(And if you aren’t looking for a healthy gingerbread treat at this point in life, I’d like to steer you in the direction of something sweet, buttery, and perfectly gingerbread-spiced in the form of these cookies.)

And now, if you’ll let me dork out for about six minutes *eyes squeezed shut nervously* I’ll give you the First Kitchen Video and lots of chatter, er, demo, for these Gingerbread Muffins.

How To Make Our Gingerbread Muffins:

So the kitchen is not 100% done, but yes it’s close, and yes we can use it (haayyyy) and yes we most definitely WILL do a recap post and video when everything is all in place in a week or two.

And yes, I worked at Perkins when I was 14, and yes, I am going to eat a third muffin.

Right now, dang it.

Muffins in a muffin tin.
Gingerbread muffin with coffee.

I am just totally and absolutely loving having a real live kitchen in my life again, if I haven’t mentioned that like a million and a half times before.

But I have a confession: the new kitchen makes me Crazy with a capital C. Or maybe just my Crazy side has started to come out into the light a little more in the presence of new appliances, countertops, and cabinets. Sometimes Bjork comes home from The Office and finds me examining the countertops from one inch away to find any possible stains (I don’t even think it’s possible to stain quartz but a girl’s gotta look), or measuring all the gaps between the cabinet doors to make sure they’re even, or marking the whole kitchen with blue tape wherever I find a scuff or scratch or ding on the cabinets. It’s a beautiful curse to have this incredible kitchen but to not have it be “lived in” yet because at this early point in the new kitchen cooking game, I will find every scratch, ding, stain on the cooktop (NO FOR REAL, already stained) and it will all just makes me want to cry. I equally love the idea of actually cooking here and hate the idea of losing the beautiful, pristine kitchen thing we have going on.

Also, the Crazy factor is real.

I’m sure it will get more normal, with every stain and scratch and ding I’ll get less worked up about the perfection thing, right? RIGHT? Please give me hope.

I hereby promise not to examine anything in the kitchen today other than the sugary beautiful tops of these puffy, warm, healthy gingerbread muffins.

That should be more than enough of a distraction.

Gingerbread muffins in a muffin tin.
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Healthy gingerbread muffins in a muffin tin.

Healthy Gingerbread Muffins


  • Author: Pinch of Yum
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 12 regular sized muffins 1x

Description

These healthy gingerbread muffins are made with coconut oil, whole wheat flour, and real maple syrup. So puffy and so delicious!


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup molasses
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup real maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup light sour cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger paste (sub 1 teaspoon ground ginger)
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • turbinado sugar for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or butter. Melt the coconut oil so it’s in liquid form. In a small bowl, whisk the liquid coconut oil with the molasses.
  2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, maple syrup, sour cream, milk, and ginger. Let the mixture come to room temperature so that you can easily add the coconut oil (30-40 seconds in the microwave is fine if you’re rushed). When it’s at room temperature, add the coconut oil and molasses from step one. The coconut oil should stay liquified.
  3. Add the flours, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir a few times until just combined. Scoop into a muffin tin and sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until the tops are puffy and firm to the touch. Cool for a few minutes before serving.
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 20 mins
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: American

Keywords: healthy gingerbread muffins, gingerbread muffins, healthy muffins

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186 Comments

  1. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Cute video, fun! Anyhow, loving these gingerbread muffins, especially those sparkle sugar tops. What can I say? They twinkle at me. They wink at me and I eat them. Non-stop. I won’t let myself pick that top off because that’s just wrong. Will make the right decision to eat the whole muffin.

  2. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Yay for kitchens AmIright?! So happy that you have yours back!
    AND, Double, TRIPLE MEGA yay for sparkly, cute muffins that have the most perfect dome-y tops that my eyes ever did peep!
    Obsessed with the fact that you used coconut oil…that stuff really is AWESOME! Pinned!

  3. Pinch of Yum Logo

    The kitchen is crazy gorgeous! Like, so good. And I totally get you wanting to keep it super perfect for as long as you can. I know I would, too. And no one else would get it while I was being that neurotic.

    Your videos are awesome and I’m so glad you’re making them! These muffins look incredible. I love gingerbread and I’m really excited to make gingerbread EVERYTHING, starting with these! Love the healthified version because that means I can eat them as an on the go breakfast and feel great about it 🙂

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      Thanks Chelsea! We’re excited to get even more experience with them to keep on improving – right now it’s like, okay, let’s just press record… 🙂

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      Thanks Candace! I don’t feel all that natural yet but you have to start somewhere, right?! 🙂 Thanks for the kind words!

  4. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Kitchen looks beautiful! I completely understand the new kitchen crazy thing. Completely. A few more dings and you’ll relax, mostly. My husband dropped a casserole dish a few years ago and it exploded like shrapnel on one of my beautiful cabinet doors….heartbreaking. But a house is for living and stuff happens when you live…although I still cringe a little inside when I see the “repaired” knicks in that door…

    The muffins look amazing. I can’t wait to make them. I adore gingerbread everything and I have everything but the ginger paste. Have you made it with the sub of ground ginger and if you did, were you happy with it? I’ve got good quality ground ginger and I think I will probably use that so that I can make them sooner than later…

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      Thanks Ramona! Bjork always tells me – we don’t serve the kitchen, the kitchen serves us. It’s my new mantra. 🙂 I haven’t made a sub with ground ginger but the original recipe that inspired these used dry ground ginger so I’d say go for it! Just use a teaspoon or so.

      1. Pinch of Yum Logo

        Made these as part of Christmas breakfast… decided to go simpler this year instead of a fancy yeast bread…we had a good old fashioned farmer’s breakfast and these muffins…..subbed in whole wheat pastry flour for all of the flour, used the ground ginger as you suggested….my whole family enjoyed them and wanted seconds! I usually use ground cloves in my gingerbread recipes, but this was perfectly spiced as is. Thanks for a yummy, healthier treat!

      2. Pinch of Yum Logo

        Loved the taste..had to grind my own oats for oat flour vs wheat bran. 17 minutes was too long for my muffins..May try again
        Judy

  5. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Gingerbread is one of my very favorite seasonal favorites and these look like they’d be PERFECT with a cup of coffee 🙂

  6. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Hello molasses! And combined with maple they guarantee each bite of these muffins to be a partay in MY mouth! But wait – these are not in MY kitchen – care to send me some? I will let you use my broken in oven anytime {minus the plane ticket down to Atlanta ;)}
    Love how bright and airy yalls new kitchen is! Looking forward to some more pictures!

  7. Pinch of Yum Logo

    SO pretty! I think it is the perfect time for gingerbread things. I watched the video and kept exclaiming about your beautiful kitchen. The light! And the countertops! And the oven! So nice, I hope you love it!

  8. Pinch of Yum Logo

    I have every ingredient in this house right now, except for sour cream…. I often swap thick greek yogourt for sour cream in cooking but I’m not sure I can for baked good. yes? what do you think?

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      I was also wondering about a sour cream substitute. Is there any vegan substitute for sour cream?

      1. Pinch of Yum Logo

        I used tofutti sour cream in a cake and it worked great. I bet it would work fine in this recipe. As an alternative, you could sub vegan buttermilk for the sour cream and milk by adding 2 tsp vinegar to 1 cup almond or soy milk and let it sit for a few minutes before adding to the recipe. Just an idea!

        1. Pinch of Yum Logo

          Great ideas! Thank you!! I will try the second one as I have almond milk at home and really want to make these tonight!!

      2. Pinch of Yum Logo

        I use plain coconut milk yogurt to sub for sour cream. I’ve used it for buttermilk as well, just water it down a bit.

  9. Pinch of Yum Logo

    they look delicious! Can I use the fake maple syrup if it’s all I have on hand? Also- could I possibly sub out the sour cream for greek yogurt?

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      Sure – I think both would work. I just use real maple syrup because it bugs me that lots of “regular” maple syrup is actually just flavored corn syrup. That’s why I recommend “real” maple syrup. 🙂 But in a pinch either can work!

  10. Pinch of Yum Logo

    I’ve been dying to make mollasses crinkle cookies, but not excited to use the exorbinant amounts of Crisco that they require. This recipe looks like it takes all the yummy flavors of the cookies and makes healthy muffins. Awesome 🙂

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      You could always accidentally double or triple the amount of Crisco like I did that one time? *gag* …except somehow I still ate loads of the dough? twas the Christmas of lard.

  11. Pinch of Yum Logo

    These look delicious – love the sugar on top and I want some with my coffee! I have been wanting to try the coconut oil. Thanks for the recipe a the great video.

  12. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Hi Lindsay! Those muffins look delicious! I’ve been craving gingerbread cookies but muffins sound really good too! Good job with the video! I just want to say that you and Bjork have been an inspiration to me since I found your blog about a year ago. It is so amazing to see how you have grown your blog! I receive your blog emails and I also receive Bjork’s Food Blogger Pro emails! Way to go! I’m still getting used to this blogging stuff, but invite you to check out my blog tastefulblessings.com. I’m so happy for you both and wish you many continued blessings! Happy Thanksgiving!
    ~Lori