Healthy Gingerbread Muffins

These gingerbread muffins have the perfect winter flavors and amazing domed tops. They are made with classic gingerbread spices and molasses for a festive treat. They’re also super fluffy and moist so you would never guess that they’re made with less butter and sugar. You can make these with all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and you can even add almond flour!

Tips + notes

Molasses: I recommend using dark molasses in these muffins for the best flavor. If you dark molasses to be too strong, or you only have light molasses, feel free to use that instead!

Flour: This muffin recipe is pretty versatile in terms of the flour. You can use all purpose flour, or a mixture of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. The whole wheat flour creates a slightly darker muffin and gives a rich, nutty flavor. It also adds some more fiber to these muffins! You can even use some almond flour. My favorite ratio is 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup all purpose flour, and 2/3 cup almond flour.

Baking soda: This recipe calls for 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda, which may seem like a lot, but it creates the perfect rise for these muffins because the batter is fairly heavy. Also, make sure you are using baking soda and not baking powder. The baking soda reacts with the acid in molasses to create fluffy muffins!

Spices: This recipe calls for ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves. Simply for ease, I like to use the pre-ground spices, but if you have fresh spices, feel free to use that instead and grate it by hand! If you are using pre-ground spices, make sure that they are not expired for the best flavor.

Room temperature: It is important that your eggs, yogurt, and milk are at room temperature when you add them to the batter. This is because they will be added to the melted butter and it might solidify if your ingredients are too cold. Having room temperature ingredients also gives a better rise to the muffins. To quickly warm up eggs, I like to submerge them in a bowl of warm tap water for a couple of minutes. For milk, I like to just microwave it until it is slightly warm.

Yogurt: I like to use greek non-fat yogurt because it is what I usually have in the fridge, but any type of greek yogurt will work. Make sure that you are using greek yogurt and not plain yogurt because plain yogurt is usually more runny.

Milk: You can use any milk you like. I used 1% milk because that is what I had on hand.

Granulated sugar: If you want to give your muffins a slightly shimmery and crunchy top, similar to a ginger snap cookie, you can sprinkle some granulated sugar on top of your muffins before baking. This is completely optional, but I think it’s a fun addition. If you do this, make sure you brush off any sugar that might be on your pan because it could caramelize in the oven, which is a pain to clean off.

If you liked these healthy gingerbread muffins, you might also like…

• Healthier double chocolate muffins
• Healthy pumpkin streusel muffins
• Healthier ginger molasses cookies
• Double chocolate crinkle cookies

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4.5 from 2 votes

Healthy Gingerbread Muffins

Super fluffy and warmly spiced muffins made with less butter and sugar. They are also made with whole wheat flour and have an amazing domed top.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time18 minutes mins

Total Time33 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, Dessert, Snack

Keyword: christmas, gingerbread, healthy, muffins, winter

Servings: 12 muffins

Author: Half the Sugar Baker

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup molasses
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt room temperature
• 1/2 cup milk room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• extra granulated sugar for sprinkling on top

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 425ºF. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease well.
• In a large microwave-safe bowl, add the butter and molasses. Melt in microwave for around 45 seconds or until completely melted. Whisk the butter and molasses together. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves. Set aside.
• In the bowl with the melted butter and molasses, add the two eggs, yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk until completely combined.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold together with a spatula until just combined. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. Optionally sprinkle some granulated sugar on top of the muffins.
• Bake at 425ºF for 5 minutes. Without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 350ºF and bake for an additional 13 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Once done baking, remove the muffins from the oven and let rest in the pan for 5 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!