Our standards are homemade yogurt with toppings (jam/honey/fruit, nuts, granola, etc.), homemade bread with almond butter, jam, or cinnamon butter and honey, overnight steel cut oats, smoothies (almond butter, banana, and milk is our fave!), and muffins. I have gotten in the habit of making a batch of muffins on Sunday and then freezing them. We take them out in the morning and throw them in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute and enjoy hot, homemade muffins for breakfast.
This is by far, the best, most nutritious recipe I have tried. It only has 1/4 cup of brown sugar. It uses both oats and whole wheat flour AND it's just a template so you can add whatever your heart desires. The only downside is that the recipe does take some preparation. It calls for the oats to be soaked in buttermilk (or soured milk) for an hour before cooking time. This requires some planning, but the rest of the recipe comes together in 5 minutes.
So far, I have made fresh blueberry muffins and raspberry-almond muffins. It's rhubarb season, so really looking forward to picking up a few stalks and throwing in some cardomam for the next batch. If you try this recipe, let me know what flavor combinations you try or even ones that sound good! I have been dreaming of the following combinations:
- Fresh blueberries and ground ginger
- Raspberries and vanilla bean
- Rhubarb and cardamom
- Grated carrots and raisins
- Diced apple, extra cinnamon, and walnuts
- Peaches
- Frozen or fresh cherries and chocolate chips
The best breakfast muffins
Adapted from here.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup buttermilk (OR alternatively 1 cup milk with 1 tspn. lemon juice of white vinegar added and let sit for 5 minutes before proceeding)
- 1 cup rolled oats (not the quick kind)
- 1 large egg, room temp
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly (I want to try replacing this with coconut oil too!)
- 1 tspn. vanilla extract
- 1 cup plus 2 TB flour (I use whole wheat)
- 1/4 tspn. salt
- 1 tspn. baking powder
- 1/2 tspn. baking soda
- 1/4 tspn. nutmeg, freshly ground
- 1/2 tspn. cinnamon
- Add-ins of your choice
- Combine milk and oats in a large bowl and let stand one hour.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin and line with cupcake papers.
- Crack the egg into the oats; add brown sugar and mix to combine. Stir in melted butter and vanilla.
- Sift remaining ingredients into the bowl: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. Gently fold into batter, taking care no to over mix.
- Sprinkle add-ins and additional flavorings and combine gently.
- Spoon into muffin tins.
- Bake until light brown on top and muffins spring back when gently touched, about 10-12 minutes. This will take longer is you use fresh or frozen fruit additions.
- Remove and enjoy!
