Lemon Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

IMG_7198.jpg

There are a couple of tricks I have learned over the years to do with baking but my most recent has been on baking with honey. I like to substitute raw unpasteurized honey in most of my baking recipes as I don’t like using the conventional super processed, no nutrients, old white sugar. Honey, a sugar no less has some great benefits to it. Besides being so yummy, honey as antiseptic, antioxidant and cleansing properties. Honey can be used to help heal cuts, sooth sore throats and even cure some aliments. Honey also helps reduce inflammation and scarring. It is also a great moisturizer for the skin, homemade honey facemask anyone?!

Obviously baking/cooking anything at a high temperature you are going to lose some of those great benefits but I still feel a whole lot better baking with honey than I do with white sugar. You can read about some of the benefits of coconut sugar in a post I wrote here, plus a recipe for lemon scented strawberry basil scones! Apparently I like lemon in a lot of things :)

Oh duh and of course the trick I learned…honey is great for keeping muffins, cakes and loafs incredibly moist but it can sometimes lead to dense, heavy not so fluffy baking. To fix that whip your honey on high in a mixer for 4-5 minutes (until it has a translucent colour) this will add some air into the honey, making it lighter and giving you that fluffier baking product. These lemon blueberry oatmeal muffins are the perfect source to test this trick.

lemon blueberry oatmeal muffins + pecan crumble topping

muffin ingredients

1 ½ cups of rolled oats  

1 cup of whole wheat flour  

½ cup of honey

½ cup of coconut sugar

1 cup of almond milk

¼ cup of coconut oil (melted) 

2 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla

1 tbsp of baking powder

¼ tsp of salt - the zest of two lemons

1 heaping cup of blueberries

pecan crumble

1 cup of rolled oats

 ¼ cup of chopped pecans

1 tbsp of whole wheat flour

3 tbsp of coconut oil

directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, line a muffin tray with wrappers (or grease and flour). This recipe will make 6 giant muffins and 12 regular sized muffins.

To make the crumble combine the rolled oats, chopped pecans, coconut sugar, flour and coconut oil and mix with fingers until it has a crumble like consistency and then set aside.

In a mixer on high (the highest setting) mix the honey, until it is translucent in colour (about 4-5 minutes) then add in the coconut sugar (alternatively you could use all honey or all coconut sugar, I just happened to run out of honey or I would have used all honey), add in one egg at a time, lightly beat and then add the almond milk and vanilla. Add in the melted coconut oil at the very end right before you are adding the wet into the dry ingredients.

In another bowl add all of your dry ingredients together along with the lemon zest.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the wet ingredients and fold until just combined. Then lightly stir in the blueberries.

Fill the muffin cups and top with some of the crumble.

Bake at 400 degrees for the first 8 minutes and then turn the heat down to 375 (this will help the muffin rise higher) and bake for another 12 minutes.


These made the house smell so yummy and have that rustic homemade country look to them. Do you have any baking tick and tricks? I am always up for learning new ones, leave a comment below.