I am always on the lookout for healthy bread and muffin recipes.  I don’t even make them all that much, but I love the smell of something baking in the oven, and the transportability of muffins for a quick snack or breakfast.  What I don’t love is the usual suspects in muffins – sugar, oil, butter and white flour.  With our daughter’s recent one year birthday, I needed to find a healthy “cake” I could make for her and her young cousins.  I was pretty specific in my requirements, and was so excited to come across this recipe by Fit Mama. It was a HUGE hit with the little ones, and the adults as well!  The only change I made to the original recipe was adding some blended beets to the icing to make it pink (in the future I would actually just leave it white – beet juice plus white dress = disaster waiting to happen).

Because this worked so well, I went right away to the same idea when I was thinking of a way to use up a ton of leftover cooked beets I had.  Why not use the beets instead of the applesauce?  It would add the amount of moistness I needed, while keeping the nutrients in the beets (and hiding that “beet” flavor that I like but others may not).

It worked and was DELICIOUS!

You really need to try this!  My husband likes it just as much as my one year old daughter.  I made them in mini-loaf pans so I could slice pieces more easily for my youngster, but they would be great in muffin form as well!  Just cut the time to 16 minutes if you are using a muffin tin.  These will keep in the fridge for 5 days, and in the freezer for 3 months in an airtight container.  You can feel good about feeding yourself and your family, and giving them away as gifts to teachers and at bake sales 🙂  Enjoy!

Enjoy!  Please let me know if you’ve come across any other healthy bread or kiddie recipes!  I would love to hear about them!