Oatmeal Spice Muffins

Let's take a breakfast staple and throw it into a muffin. I've seen french toast muffins and pancake syrup muffins, probably bacon muffins, so why not oatmeal muffins? A nice compact way to get your oats for the day. You can easily season these with your favorite oatmeal toppings like blueberries or extra cinnamon or add some jam or nutella.

 

The only preplanning needed here is allowing the oats to soak in the buttermilk for about 30 minutes. While they soak, you can gather your ingredients and preheat the oven (400F, line the muffin pan too!). In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

 

Once the oats have soaked up the buttermilk, add the eggs and brown sugar to the bowl and mix until combined. The batter so far will be very thick. Mix in the melted butter and vanilla, followed by the flour mixture. If you're adding any dried fruit or chocolate chips, now would be the time to fold 'em in.

 

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling half way. Bake until golden on top and cooked through.

 

The verdict was these were more like scone muffins than muffin muffins but I'll take it! We are in England, after all.

Recipe

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.  Preheat the oven to 400F and line a muffin tin with paper liners (or grease like I did because I was fresh out of liners).
2. In a large bowl, combine the oats and buttermilk. Allow to sit for 30-60 minutes until the oats have soaked up the milk.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. 
4. Once the oats have soaked, add the eggs and brown sugar, mixing to combine. Next, stir in the melted butter and vanilla. 
5. Add the flour mixture to the oats mixture and stir until no flour is visible. The batter will be very thick from the oats.
6. Add any remaining fixins you'd like in the muffins before spooning the batter into the pan, filling a little over half-way.
7. Bake for 20-30 minutes until golden brown on top and cooked through. 
8. Enjoy with some jam or nutella, like a scone, or plain. 

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Let me tell you a story about bananas. It's bananas. When I was a kid, I ate a banana and it turned my front teeth grey. And then I didn't want to eat bananas for a really long time. This was like preschool age, very impressionable. I eventually accepted that bananas aren't too bad and I buy them now but wouldn't say I really enjoy them. Deep down I know I only buy bananas and hope they aren't eaten in time so I can make banana bread.

 

But really, there must be more than just banana bread and smoothies for mushy bananas to be good for. And so we make breakfast bars with bananas as the glue to hold all the oaty goodness together. This also requires very little prep or cleanup--perfect.

 

In a food processor, combine bananas, oats,nuts, honey, vegetable (or coconut) oil, protein powder and spices. All of this will get blended together until smooth. My food processor had to woooork so it might take a few minutes and a few stirs to get it all blended.

 

The mix is then poured into a prepared 9x9 (or 8x8, let's be real) pan lined and greased with parchment paper. This will make it super easy to remove the final bars from the pan. While the base is cooking, more oats, nuts and spices are mixed together with almond milk and blueberries (or whatever fruit you prefer). This will be the topping.

 

Once the base has cooked for 10 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and add the topping. Gently press the topping into the base so everything sticks together. I forgot this step and it was still tasty but a little messy. Bake for another 15 minutes.

 

I cut these into squares and wrapped them up as a quick grab and go snack or breakfast during the week. So simple, so tasty.

Recipe

Bar Ingredients

• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 2 ripened bananas
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4 Tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (vanilla works too)

Topping Ingredients

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Line a square pan with parchment paper, leaving some overhang on the edges. Lightly grease the parchment paper (the side where the batter will go).
3. In a food processor, blend together all of the ingredients for the bar. 
4. Pour mix into the prepared pan and smooth to fill all corners.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the topping ingredients.
7. Add the topping to the pan with the bars. Gently press topping into the solid mixture.
8. Bake for another 15 minutes.
9. Remove from pan by lifting on the sides of parchment paper. Cut into individual squares for a snack on the go!