I am constantly looking for new ways to keep Walker happy at breakfast time that doesn’t involve an outfit change and a bath after. What Mom doesn’t? I was reading Welcoming Kitchen: 200 Delicious Allergen- & Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes and saw her recipes for muffins and had to try one of the recipes out (she has quite a few). What pulled me in? That the muffins are based on oat flour, rather than a hodge-podge of gluten-free flours and gums. I don’t overly care for Xanthan Gum in baked goods, nor do I like Guar Gum either. I just find the texture odd and it is a turn-off. Being that I am not on a GF diet I used my standard Bob’s Red Mill Oats Rolled Regular that I buy in 25 pound bags, if you are on a GF diet and can have oats, use GF certified ones (Bob’s Red Mill does sell them). I used a very finely ground oat flour that I made with my Vitamix Blender and sifted – I found the muffins to have very similar texture to wheat flour muffins. I have cooked with oat flour before and find it the closest in texture. And hey, we like oats in our house! Walker was very happy with the muffins, I froze the rest for breakfasts in the coming week. When I do this, I pull a muffin out for him when I get up, by the time he is up it is thawed.

Double Apple Oat Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oat flour (see below), gluten-free oats if needed
• 1½ tsp baking powder, divided
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• ½ cup flaxseed meal
• ¼ cup neutral vegetable oil, such as sunflower
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup unsweetened coconut milk (called for rice milk)
• 1½ cups finely chopped crisp apples (about 2)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° and oil or spray a non-stick 12 count muffin tin.

In a medium bowl combine oat flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder,, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, stir with a whisk.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the applesauce, remaining baking powder, flaxseed meal, oil, brown sugar and milk till smooth.

Mix dry ingredients into applesauce mixture, one half at a time. Stir in apples.

Divide batter into muffin pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick interested in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

Oat Flour -

I have covered how to make in a mini food-chopper or food processor before (pulse until ground) in the past. I wanted to have a smooth oat flour for these muffins, so I used the dry grinding container for our Vitamix blender. By doing it in 2 batches of 1 cup oats each time, I had a fine powder that I the sifted through a very fine mesh strainer. It left a silky smooth oat flour. Does one need to do this much work? No, but it was fun to see just how fine I could get the powder! A chunkier grind works but I can say that the finer the flour the more like wheat the texture is.

~Sarah