Morning muffins
As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ve had two breakfast staples in our house as of late: baked oatmeal and homemade muffins. Depending on what ingredients we have on hand, we make one or the other, and we change our muffin variety all the time! Usually we make muffins with whatever fruit is in season, like peach muffins or apple muffins or pumpkin or even sweet potato. They’re all so delicious! In the winter when not much fresh fruit is in season, or we just don’t have any fresh fruit on hand to toss into the muffins, I always have a big bag of organic frozen blueberries in the freezer, so we do tend to make blueberry muffins quite often. And those in particular seem to be one of the favorites in the house. If we’re using berries as our feature fruit, we always use bananas as well as a sweetener base, because most berries on their own, even when baked are not quite sweet enough. When making apple or peach muffins, I usually cook down the fruit first a bit to help caramelize and concentrate the natural sugars in the fruit, so I find we don’t need the bananas for extra sweetness. In addition to keeping organic, frozen blueberries in the freezer, whenever we have some bananas that are getting overripe, I peel and freeze those. Overripe bananas are the best for baking, frozen or not!
For dry ingredients, we use sprouted, gluten-free oats for our base. I buy One Degree Organic Sprouted rolled oats in bulk from Costco. Sprouted grains are best to buy because they are much easier to digest than unsprouted grains, and this brand in particular is organic and glyphosate-free! (Glyphosate is a toxic chemical used in farming grains that we try to steer clear of.) I grind up the oats myself in the food processor to make my own oat flour. Sometimes, if I have an alternative grain, gluten-free flour in the pantry, such as buckwheat or teff, I will use half oats and half of that flour. I always add a bit of baking soda as a leavening agent, and for extra protein, I add either organic hemp seeds or organic, raw pumpkin seeds, which go right into the food processor, along with the oats and/or other grain flours, to grind right up. We love cinnamon in our household, so a healthy dose of cinnamon goes into every batch of muffins we bake, no matter the fruit inside!
The best part of making these muffins is the experience of baking with my sweet son. He loves to help measure the ingredients and push the buttons on the food processor, watching in giggly curiosity how everything gets blended up. It’s such a fun and great learning opportunity for him, especially as we make baking and cooking part of our homeschool day several times a week.
Blueberry muffins
(makes 24 muffins)
420g One Degree Organic Sprouted rolled oats (approximately 4 cups)*
280g fresh or frozen defrosted blueberries (about 2 cups)
4 medium overripe bananas, if frozen, defrost first
1-2 tsp. organic ground cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
60g organic hemp seeds (about 4 Tbsp.)
Preheat the oven to 350F. While the oven in preheating, grind the oats, hemp seeds, baking soda, and cinnamon in the food processor. Allow everything to grind finely into a flour-like consistency. Dump out the dry ingredients into a large bowl and set aside. Next, place the bananas in the bowl of the food processor and puree. Then add the blueberries, pulsing only several times to just chop the berries. This gives the muffins some nice texture. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and add water, about 1 cup to start. Stir with a spatula. The muffin batter should be wet, not too thick but not too loose. Keep adding water as needed. If you accidentally add too much water, place the batter in the fridge for 30-60 minutes to allow the mixture to thicken. Scoop even spoonfuls of batter into 24 silicon muffin cups. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the muffins are slightly golden on the edges. Be careful not to over bake, as they can dry out.
*If using half oats and half alternative-grain flour, substitute 210g of oats with 2 cups of whatever flour you choose.
