Healthy Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 0.8 cup buttermilk 1% (I used )
• 0.8 cup chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips)
• 0.5 cup brown sugar dark packed (I used brown sugar)
• 4 tablespoons margarine spread soft (I used Becel Original)
• 0.3 cup jar prune puree (I used Beech Nut baby food)
• 0.3 teaspoon salt 
• 1 tablespoon apple sauce unsweetened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
• 1 tablespoon water 
• 0.3 cup wheat germ toasted
• 2 cups pastry flour whole wheat

Equipment

• baking sheet
• oven
• mixing bowl
• wire rack
• hand mixer
• toothpicks
• muffin liners
• muffin tray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners and use a non stick cooking spray to grease the liners. In a baking sheet toast the wheat germ while the oven is preheating. Have a close watch or else it might burn. Around 5 minutes should be enough.In a large mixing bowl, beat the margarine and sugar until creamy using a hand held electric mixer. Stir in the buttermilk. The mixture appears to be curdled but don’t worry. Also add the prune puree.
2. Add the 1 tablespoon water to the baby food jar and shake it well and then pour it to the rest of the ingredients. Stir in the applesauce and vanilla extract too.
3. Add the rest of the dry ingredients (flour to salt) except the wheat germ to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined; do not over-mix. Lumps in the batter is fine.Divide the batter among the muffin cups.
4. Sprinkle the tops with wheat germ (around 1 teaspoon for each muffin). I usually fill 3 tablespoons of batter for each muffin. Even though the measurement is for 12 muffins, I was able to fill only 11 cups. So fill the 12th cup with water (3/4th of the tin should be enough), to ensure even baking of the muffins.
5. Bake around 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. I baked mine for 23 minutes.
6. Remove the muffin tin from the oven and cool it on a wire rack for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes take the muffins out of the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.