Whole Wheat Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins.

I think I ate about a million peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my younger years. And when I say younger, I mean much younger – like preschool age? I don’t really recall this. In fact, I may have dreamt it. But I can see myself gobbling up PB & J sandwiches with my stubby sausage fingers like it was nobody’s business. It is the only explanation for why I was sick of PB & J’s until I was about 16.

Then I fell back in love.

My hubby loves PB & J combinations, too. It is his go-to breakfast and mid-morning snack, but that may change once he begins to obsess over another 5-year old favorite food combination.

Speaking of hubbies, someone found my blog yesterday with a search of hungry + grouchy + husband. I quizzed my husband endlessly about his extra-marital activities because there can’t be anyone grouchier or hungrier than him.

Needless to say, we have endless supplies of peanut butter in our house.

And when I say endless supplies, I mean an endless supply until the morning that I have an unreasonable craving for peanut butter and realize that my husband took the last jar to work.

With everything we hoard in this house, you’d think I’d have an extra jar laying around in a shoebox or stuffed in between the 67 dye-cast Nascar cars that blind me each day.

This then sends me to the store, because it never fails that I also need cotija cheese or fennel or cilantro or something else that my hubby cannot pronounce or find anywhere in the store. And I always need those things right this minute because who goes one entire day without cotija cheese or fennel?

Maybe I should talk about these muffins?

They are fantastic. They bring me back to my childhood days. Well, not really because that would assume that my mother used whole wheat flour and natural peanut butter and in all honesty I don’t even think she knows those ingredients exist.

They taste like my younger years. They bring me back to 3rd grade when I got a perm and then overheard my mom tell someone I looked like Roseanne Barr. That was a confidence booster…

The jelly gets smooshed inside 2 spoonfuls of batter.

I used grape because my hubby likes grape, and strawberry because it’s my favorite. I hate grape. I was that kid that ate all the non-grape popsicles and then left a box full of grape popsicles for other excited kids. I always hated when I was on the receiving end of that gig.

I topped these babies with some more raw turbinado sugar because I am just loving it these days. I also love that crunch on top of muffins.

The jelly is playing peek-a-boo. That is my favorite part.

The peanut butter does get mixed in with the batter, but I added a few more spoonfuls while the muffin was still warm. Mmm mmm.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

adapted from myrecipes

Makes 12 muffins
1 3/4  cups  whole wheat flour
1/4  cup  sugar
1/4  cup  brown sugar
1  tablespoon  baking powder
1/2  teaspoon  salt
1 1/4  cups  fat-free milk
1/3  cup  creamy peanut butter (I used Smart Balance)
1/4  cup  egg whites
2  tablespoons Earth Balance spread, melted
1  teaspoon  vanilla extract
1/4 cup reduced-sugar grape jelly

1/4 cup reduced-sugar strawberry jelly

Preheat oven to 400.

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, sugars, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; stir with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine milk and next 4 ingredients (through vanilla); add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Fill each cup half full with batter. Spoon 1 teaspoon jam into each cup. Spoon remaining batter on top to cover jam. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Let cool in pan 5 minutes. Remove from pan, and cool on a wire rack.

Make these today! They will remind you of those wonderful, awkward childhood years. Hopefully, the ones you want to remember. Not the ones you don’t. Like the time you peed your pants in Kindergarten while wearing tights. Could anything be more emotionally and physically uncomfortable?

It’s memories like those that make my world go ’round.

Tagged as: muffins, peanut butter, recipes, whole wheat