Almost healthy muffins

I recently had a large number people rendezvous at my apartment before heading out for a girls day.  Since we were meeting in the morning I decided to have breakfast on hand.  Muffins seemed like an easy enough option until I realized that the only egg in my fridge was hard-boiled, and most muffin recipes call for 2 or 3 eggs.  Thankfully we live in the age of the internet, and substitutions for almost anything are just a few key strokes away.  It turns out that applesauce can be substituted for eggs in small amounts, which was nice since I had already planned on adding applesauce to the recipe.  I made a few other substitutions based on comments on the website and my own whims, here was the end result:

• 1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 3 Tbls cinnamon applesauce
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 Tbls dark Karo syrup

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Soak the oats in milk for 15-20 minutes before blending in the wet ingredients, then blend in the dry ingredients.  The recipe makes about 14-15 regular muffins or almost 2 dozen mini muffins.  I filled the tins almost to the top, however the original recipe called for 2/3 full.  I found that they hardly rose at all while baking. I baked the regular sized ones for 18 minutes and the mini ones for 12.

The resulting muffins were great!  A lot of complaints about the original recipe had been about the oats not softening enough, the muffins being dry, or the flavor lacking something.  I think the corn syrup and applesauce probably contributed to the moistness, as well as a much shorter baking time.  I added the vanilla to add another dimension to the flavor and soaked the oats an extra 5 minutes. 

Everyone seemed to love them and you can almost convince yourself they're a healthy choice for breakfast.  I mean, they've got oatmeal in them right?