#FlavorfulFriday – Healthy Baked Oatmeal Muffins – Simplest Recipe Ever! #SugarFree – CG Fitness: Personal Training, Nutrition & Yoga

#FlavorfulFriday - Healthy Sugarfree Baked Oatmeal Muffins | Healthy, Fit & Barefoot! — #FlavorfulFriday – Healthy Sugarfree Baked Oatmeal Muffins | Healthy, Fit & Barefoot!

Do you like muffins? Do you like oatmeal? How about baked oatmeal muffins? I’ve never been a huge muffin kinda girl. They are loaded with so much sugar never have any healthy ingredients in them….now…I am a sucker for crumb coffee cake (which I have yet to find a healthy version of).

Some of my friends and family are muffin lovers so I decided to find a healthy version that is simple, healthy and something they can grab and go with. I found a recipe on Pinterest and made some of my own modifications to it and it’s super yummy!

These literally take less than 30 minutes to make 6 mini muffins (or cups…not sure what to call them) and they are super convenient. If you have little ones…they will love these as well!

The only sugar in these is from the mashed banana (which I just mashed in my glass Pyrex measuring bowl then added the rest of the ingredients right to this bowl) and whatever fruit you decide to put in these. I used fresh strawberries (not local unfortunately…from Florida) and blueberries. You could use frozen berries too, just make sure you buy the ones that don’t have added sugar to them.

Oh! Just thought about peach season! These will be super yummy with fresh peaches!

Ingredients

1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large bananas or 3 small-medium bananas)
1 cup gluten-free old-fashioned rolled oats, uncooked
1 farm fresh egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
½- 3/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (I leaned closer to the 3/4 cup amount of berries)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Place unbleached baking cups in muffin tin
Mash banana until smooth (mine still had a few little chunks)
In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg
Add oats, beaten egg, baking powder and vanilla to mashed banana bowl
Stir until well mixed
Stir in strawberries, blueberries or whatever fruit you decided on
Spoon the mixture into the lined muffin tin, filling to the top (mine looked like they were going to overflow, which is OK because these don’t rise much at all)
Bake at 425 degrees for 5 minutes, then decrease oven to 375 and bake for 12 more minutes
Allow muffins to cool for 5-10 minutes before pulling out of tin. I let them cool another 10 minutes then store mine in a glass container in the fridge. (I actually prefer to eat these cold, but you could reheat them up in the microwave or store them right on the counter top in a glass container if you plan on eating them pretty quickly)

I made these for my mom and gave her the recipe to make at home and now she has a healthy breakfast to take with her to work in the morning. My mom likes to ask me questions about healthy items I buy and cook, like why do I use unbleached baking cups? Using unbleached baking cups (and unbleached baking paper) means that when I cook food on/in them we aren’t being exposed to dioxin (read more here) which is an unwanted by products of a wide range of manufacturing processes including smelting, chlorine bleaching of paper pulp and the manufacturing of some herbicides and pesticides. I don’t understand the need for everything to by changed to the color white in America. What’s wrong with brown paper? Anyway…before I go off on a tangent…that’s why I choose to buy unbleached liner and baking cups. It’s the little things that add up to a healthier life. When we don’t buy items that use chlorine bleach in them it also means that chlorine doesn’t get back into our streams and oceans, which means a healthier environment!

Let me know if you try these super simple and healthy baked oatmeal muffins! Oh, I almost forgot to mention about adding some dark chocolate chips or walnuts to the top of these would be yummy too! Get creative and let your kids help make these too!