Universal Baked Oatmeal

I apologize in advance for lack of photos. You'll just have to trust me that they look beautiful. Back when I was in wedding weightloss mode I searched for anything that was low calorie and tasted good. I LOVE chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. I was very excited when I stumbled on a banana chocolate chip oatmeal singles recipe on Emily the Baker's blog! I baked this recipe religiously for months. I loved them.
 
Then I signed up for a CSA this summer. Sadly bananas don't grow well in the northeast so I found myself inundated with other types of fruit. After baking several cobblers (including a to die for plumb cobbler with these tiny red plums that I wish I knew what they were so I could buy my own tree to get as many as I can eat!). I decided that turning fruit into dessert was not the best idea for avoiding the post wedding weight gain. One week I sat staring at a pile of peaches and a belly grumbling for muffins and it hit me, put the peaches in the muffins!

After some yummy peach muffins I was on a mission. We moved into a bigger house this summer and before we moved my husband was on a mission to eat all the food we could in our house so we would have less stuff to move. I experimented with some frozen strawberries and dried coconut one week. Hubby seemed to like it (I'm not a coconut fan personally). After we moved I discovered that our new house had an apple tree that weighed down with lots of ripe apples so I made lots of apple oatmeal muffins :)
 
I've decided that this is a great universal breakfast muffin recipe

Ingredients:
1.5 cups old-fashioned oats
1.5 cups one minute or quick oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar or sugar alternative
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups skim milk or plain yogurt
¾ c mashed bananas or apple sauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ c semi-sweet chocolate chips or apples, peaches, pecans, strawberries, you name it! Or you can just skip this all together and get a super low cal muffin! When I swap out chocolate chips for fruit I like to add something with a little fat too like pecans with apples or the strawberry with coconut, something to make the muffins keep you fuller longer. I also like to replace the bananas with applesauce and add spices as I think fit. I love adding some cinnamon to apple muffins.

You can use all old fashioned oats but I found that swapping out half of the oats with quick oats gives you more of a muffin texture. With just the oats the muffins can be a little soupy when you put them in the oven, the quick oats absorb some of that excess liquid.

Directions:
1.    Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly mist 18 cups in a muffin tin with baking spray.
2.    Combine the oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed.
3.    In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites, egg, mashed banana, milk and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until blended together. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4.    Spoon the oatmeal mixture evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Bake uncovered for 18-22 minutes or until oatmeal is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Here's 1 photo I found from when I baked them a few months ago...I needed something for pinterest :)

Pin It