This morning was a gift from the weather gods! A cool, clear, crisp start to a beautiful fall-like weekend. I could finally use my oven without worrying about blasting the air conditioner👍. So I started out to make scones but then decided it was more a muffin morning. After looking at dozens of recipes and missing a key ingredient for each one, I decided to do my own thing and use whatever I could find. Mine were not gluten-free because I was out of that flour but you could easily switch gluten-free flour for the wheat flour. I also had no applesauce so I used some of the Peach Butter I made a few weeks ago (see my August 21st post “Peach Scones”) and it was perfect. No raisins, no worries, I used dried, tart cherries instead. Used kefir for the liquid since that was all I had in my fridge and coconut oil instead of butter. Yes, it might be time for a trip to the market!
These are pretty healthy as they only have 1/4 cup brown sugar and are full of fiber with oats, flax seed, walnuts and oat bran. If you leave out the egg they are also vegan since they do not have honey or butter. I am really quite amazed at how delicious they are and how great the texture since I am not a super baker and I was winging it like crazy. Maybe I need to quit following recipes; or not!
I don’t have my usual photos of the ingredients and each step because I did not think this would be blog-worthy but they are so good and so easy to adapt to whatever you have on hand I wanted to post them right away. Basically, you just mix all the wet ingredients in one bowl, the dry in another and add wet to dry and that’s it. What’s not to love? Oh, and in case you need more incentive to make these here’s my cat, Pippin, giving you a paws up (sort of)😻. He does look like he’s been eating too many of these muffins!
RECIPE for “Whatever-You’ve Got” Oatmeal Muffins:
Ingredients:
Wet:
- 1 cup fruit butter or applesauce
- 1/2 cup kefir
- 4 TBSP melted coconut oil (or butter)
- 1 egg (optional- omit for vegan)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Dry:
- 1 cup organic oats, NOT instant
- 3/4 cup unbleached flour of your choice
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 TBSP oat bran (optional)
- 1 TBSP ground flax seed
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or nut of your choice)
- 1/2 cup dried tart cherries, raisins or cranberries (or maybe a mix of all three!)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 and lightly coat a 12 cup muffin tin with coconut oil.
- In large bowl mix all the dry ingredients together with a whisk, including the nuts.
- In medium bowl mix all the wet ingredients together with a fork until well blended.
- Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix JUST until everything is incorporated. Do NOT OVERMIX.
- Scoop the mixture evenly into each muffin cup, top with a sprinkle of oats or some Granola (really yummy) and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Check with a bamboo skewer poked in center to ensure they are completely cooked inside.
- Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for a few minutes. When they are completely cool you can freeze some of them, too.
You could serve them with some homemade preserves but they are pretty darn good all by themselves😋
the pollen count 