Recipe: Strawberry chocolate chip muffins

Strawberries dipped in chocolate are a Valentine's Day staple. But I might just be packing these (slightly more) wholesome muffins in my kids' lunches on the big day.

I found this recipe on Sally's Baking Addiction website. Substituting applesauce and an egg white for butter and a whole egg, these muffins are just about fat free. And, while they aren't as decadent as the full fat version, they do make for a fun and easy treat.

I used frozen strawberries, which we picked fresh this summer. I chopped them up first before mixing up the rest of the batter. By the time I was ready to add them in, they were mostly thawed.

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray a muffin pan with cooking spray.

In one large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, white sugar and applesauce. Make sure there are no brown sugar clumps left. In a third bowl, whisk the egg white until you start seeing bubbles and it gets a little foamy. Add the egg white to the sugar and applesauce and stir until it's all combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir together. Fold in the strawberries and chocolate chips.

Then, divide your batter into your muffin cups.

I made 18 mini muffins, which took about 11 minutes in the oven.

The recipe also makes about 10 regular sized muffins. They'll need to bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

They are ready when a toothpick, stuck into the middle of the muffin, comes out clean.