By Dana Jacobi

Usually, when I mention to someone that my cookbooks feature delicious food that happens to also be healthy, an invisible curtain drops in front of their eyes. I wish more people would understand that, today, food that is good for you can also be a pleasure to enjoy.

Plenty of cooks are pushing this meeting of good-and-good-for-you to ever greater heights.

Years ago, my goal was simply to fix health food, most of which really did taste so boring and flat that only fanatics could claim to enjoy it.

Cheesecake was worst, but also a challenge. The tofu cheesecake, always billed as absolutely delicious, tasted dry as plaster and dense as a doorstop.

I decided I would create a great-tasting and healthful cheesecake. In 1980, I used real New York cheesecake as my model. The result was so good that it helped trigger the trend for making dairy-free cheesecake using silken tofu and soy cream cheese.

My version is not cholesterol-free, because eggs help to make it as feather-light and creamy as a famous frozen cheesecake. Today, enough recipes use this approach so that you can find cholesterol-free versions that taste truly good, too.

The challenge of texture and taste

What still challenges me is creating whole-grain baked goods that come out light-textured and truly pleasant tasting to anyone who is not a health food devote.

Combining whole-wheat and all-purpose flour helps, and so does using whole-wheat pastry flour, which has a milder flavor and finer texture than other whole-wheat flours.

These muffins have a lovely texture despite the whole-wheat flour. Canned pears keep them nicely moist while adding natural sweetness and extra fiber.

Pear and Cranberry Muffins

Canola oil spray
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup reduced fat (2 percent) milk
4 tsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 canned pear halves, drained and diced
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 Tbsp. each pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, rolled oats and brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a muffin tin with eight 2-inch cups with paper cups and coat them with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, allspice and cinnamon. 

In another bowl, combine the milk, butter, vanilla and egg. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing just until combined.

Stir in the pears and cranberries.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups.

In a blender, chop the pumpkin and sunflower seeds with the oats and sugar until it turns into a fine crumbly topping-like mixture. Sprinkle the topping generously over the muffins.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until the muffins are golden brown and a straw inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool 5 minutes in the pan, unmold, and serve warm.

Makes 8 muffins.

Nutritional information
Per serving: calories, 201; total fat, 4 g; saturated fat, 2 g; carbohydrate, 38 g; protein, 4 g; dietary fiber, 3 g; sodium, 173 mg.

Dana Jacobi is author of The Joy of Soy and other cookbooks. She is recipe creator for the American Institute for Cancer Research's book, Stopping Cancer Before It Starts.

Did you know?

One medium-sized pear counts as two servings of fruit and packs 24% of the recommended daily allowance for fiber. Studies indicate that diets high in fiber may reduce the risk of heart disease
and certain types of cancer.

Source: American Institute for Cancer Research
Reference: Something Different

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