You asked for it, you got it. Here's our recipe for lightened-up zucchini nut muffins. Hooray!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 large zucchini)

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)

1/3 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1/2 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 tbsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread (like Brummel & Brown)

3 tbsp. crushed walnuts, divided

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine both types of flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

In a separate medium bowl, mix together the zucchini, egg substitute, applesauce, butter, and vanilla extract. Slowly add this mixture to the first bowl, and stir until thoroughly blended. Mix half the crushed walnuts (1 1/2 tbsp.) into the batter.

Line 9 cups of a 12-cup muffin pan with baking liners and/or spray with nonstick spray. Evenly distribute batter among the 9 cups. Top each cup with a sprinkling of the remaining 1 1/2 tbsp. crushed walnuts.

Bake in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool and then enjoy!

MAKES 9 SERVINGS

Hey, Starbucks? Um, we still like you and all, but your so-called "mini muffin" appears to be a normal-sized muffin with some pretty sad stats. Frankly, it's a good thing it's not any bigger -- it's already got almost 400 calories and a whopping 24g fat! That's more fat than the full-sized Blueberry Muffin at The 'Bucks, which is more than ANYONE should be consuming from a breakfast item. Sheesh! In fact, you could eat a third of a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream and STILL not reach the amount of fat and calories in this "little" muffin. (But don't get any crazy "ice cream for breakfast" ideas!) How does a simple breakfast bread, made from (HELLO!) vegetables, spiral so out of control? We say it's LAZINESS, 'cuz it's soooo easy to make guilt-free zucchini nut muffins without compromising the taste in any way. It just requires a little creative thinking... or our awesome recipe! Make a batch of our Fluffy-Good Zucchini Nut Muffins, and you'll never look at baked goods in a glass display case quite the same way again.