Apricot filled Banana Muffins

Oh My! These are so tasty. I found this recipe in the “Baking without Fat” cookbook. They smelled so good while baking that I couldn’t even wait for them to completely cool down before I ate one. Fabulous. I love the texture of using the oats and oat bran, instead of flour. Very sweet and moist. Almost like having a delicious bowl of oatmeal in muffin form.

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup rolled oats
½ cup oat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
¾ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
¾ cup pureed bananas (approximately 1 ½ large bananas. It took three bananas for me, but mine were fairly small)
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbls pure maple syrup (I didn’t have pure syrup and decided to omit this ingredient. The muffins still turned out fabulously without it.)
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup non-fat milk
3 egg whites, lightly beaten
¼ cup fruit-juice sweetened apricot preserves (I used “Simply Fruit”)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Pulse rolled oats and oat bran in a food processor for 10 seconds. In a medium bowl combine the oat mixture, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon & nutmeg. Mix well and set aside.

In a small bowl combined the pureed banana, honey, maple syrup, vanilla and milk; pour into oat mixture. (I used my food processor to puree the banana, then added the other ingredients to the bananas and pulsed for a few seconds to combine.) Stir until just blended. Gently mix in egg whites. Do not over mix.

Using a nonstick muffin pan, fill each muffin cup with approx. 1/3 cup of the batter. (Makes 12 muffins) Top each with 1 tsp. preserves. Bake at 350 for 20 – 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes, and remove muffins from pan.

Click here for printable recipe.