Clean Banana Oat Muffins

I have been messing around with banana everything this year. I found that you can buy 3-6 pounds of bananas at the grocery store for next to nothing. They have to be eaten within a day or so, perfect for baking! The browner the banana the sweeter it is, therefore it tastes amazing when baked!!!

I love love love a good loaf of banana bread or a nice banana nut muffin. I can eat the whole loaf or the whole pan, whatever. I tried subbing the oil for applesauce, and it was ok, a little dense but ok. I tried reducing the sugar while still using applesauce, again it was dense. It just wasn't the right texture for me.

Well after surfing around on Pinterest (what did I ever do before pinterest???) I found a good looking recipe using greek yogurt (instead of oil) and oatmeal (instead of flour!). My interest was peeked.
Jason and I have been trying to move towards an organic lifestyle and I just happened to have some organic oatmeal and organic yogurt on hand, WOOT!

So I gave the recipe a try. It was good, it was still dense though. I know a lot of people do not mind this. My kids and my husband devoured them so I am guessing they don't mind!

I still had a ton of bananas so I decided to make another batch and freeze them for the kiddos. I ground up the oatmeal and went to put the greek yogurt in when I realized "oops, I have no more greek yogurt!". I already promised the kids some banana muffins so I have to improvise. I am glad I did because I finally found the right texture FOR ME! Too bad the kids loved them just as much as I did and I sitting here typing and wishing I had one, they are all gone!!!!

So the recipe I found originally was from this blog, which I love by the way!!! and like I said, her recipe was good, just too dense for this momma. As I just copied and pasted this I realized that I left out the eggs, that was so not on purpose. I wonder if I remake these with the greek yogurt and omit the eggs, I will get the same less dense effect? I am not really a baker though, just a lover of sweets with a strong desire to eat clean.

Here are my modifications:

Ingredients


2 /1/2 cup oats (old fashioned kind, not quick cooking)

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 packets stevia sweetener

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

a bunch of cinnamon (I have no idea how much, I just dumped a bunch in until I liked the color)

3 very ripe bananas

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray tin with non-stick cooking spray- do not skip this step, they will stick. When you are baking with oatmeal instead of flour, they will stick, trust me.   

2. Put the oatmeal in a blender or food processor and grind up.

3. Dump the oatmeal in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, mix up.

4. Add batter to your muffin tin.

5. In a small bowl mix some cinnamon, a tiny bit (maybe a tsp) of sugar and a tiny bit of oatmeal. Sprinkle mix on top of muffins and bake for about 14 minutes in a mini muffin pan or 20ish minutes in a regular muffin pan (or until toothpick comes out clean).

Pull them out and enjoy! Seriously I ate them for dinner.