No Sugar Added Dairy Free Fruit & Grain Muffins

I've been on this cleanse for the past little while.  It's divided into two phases, with the first ten days being the most brutal.  No fruit.  No raw veggies.  No dairy.  No a million other things I happen to enjoy.  But on day 11, the angels sing and the sky parts, and I can once again have a salad and limited fruit.  This is my second "day 11", thanks to having to start all over on the first day 8 because of someone accidentally serving me sugar and msg.  So the whole heavens were singing this morning.

In anticipation of today, I made some muffins out of two of the allowable grains and some fruit.  The males in my life tried them yesterday and passed their approval.  Neither of them had any clue there wasn't a drop of raw sugar, maple syrup, or honey to be found in there.  Nada.  Nothing.  And they loved it.  I tried it this morning.  And I loved it.  I may never go back to putting added
sweeteners in muffins again.

(NOTE: I am not a photographer.  At all.  I take pictures to record a memory.  That's about it.  But this picture gives you an idea of the texture and size to expect when using this rather unusual recipe.)

The following recipe makes 23-24 muffins.  They won't be huge coffee-shop muffins, but they will be tender bits of delectable sweetness.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup steel cut oats (you can pulse these a minute in a food processor if you like)
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/4 cups sprouted spelt flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/16th tsp. (a tiny, tiny pinch) of Stevia Rebaudiana Leaf Extract (totally optional*)
4-5 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, beaten
4 T. coconut milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
scant 2/3 cup coconut oil, melted
2 c. berries (I used a mix of frozen blackberries and blueberries from last summer's harvest)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  In large mixing bowl, stir dry ingredients together until well combined.

2. Add in the berries and toss well to coat.

3. Mash the bananas, and mix the eggs, coconut milk, and vanilla in with a fork until well combined.  Add in the melted coconut oil and mix in until fully combined.  (If your bananas were frozen previously, you might want to consider letting them warm up to room temperature.  Otherwise, they will probably cause the coconut oil to immediately seize back up in a solid state, and that will be a pain to combine thoroughly. Fresh, ripe bananas are your friend in this step.)

4. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry berry mixture, and gently fold together until all the grains are incorporated.

5. Scoop into two greased muffin tins.  Bake at 400 for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan and then carefully run a knife along the edges of each muffin and gently lift out onto a cooling rack.  These will be very tender muffins, so go slowly and gently.

6. Enjoy and revel in the fact that you get to enjoy the sweetness of fruit.

* About the Stevia.....Most of the stevia out there isn't actually stevia.  It's primarily got sugar alcohols and a tiny bit of stevia, and then they put "stevia" on the label so you think you are doing a good thing. You are not doing a good thing.  These muffins don't actually need the extra sweetness, but if you were going to add it in, you would want to only use a brand that contained ONLY stevia rebaudiana (leaf) extract.  New Roots has a white powder concentrate that is amazing and has none of the aftertaste I kept hearing about when researching it.  I just don't know if New Roots is widely available outside of Canada.  Our little natural foods store in town carries it in a 15g container for about $9.  It's a tiny tub, but when you realize it takes only a few grains to sweeten an entire bowl of oatmeal, suddenly it seems like a worthy investment of $9.  All the big box grocery stores carried over-priced crappy substitutes.