My New Favorite Muffin

We were running low on groceries and I wanted something different for breakfast. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and with a few small tweaks, found my new favorite muffin. It's also great when you play around with the ingredients...

Applesauce-Oat Muffins

• Muffin:
• 1 1/2 cups instant oatmeal
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup milk
• Topping:
• 1/4 cup instant oatmeal
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 7/8 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F . Grease 12 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners. Whisk together 1 1/2 cups oatmeal, the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon in a mixing bowl; set aside.
2. Whisk 1/2 cup brown sugar, egg white, applesauce, vanilla and milk together in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until evenly moistened; it's ok if small, dry lumps remain. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin. Stir the 1/4 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and the melted butter in a small bowl; sprinkle this mixture over the muffins.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

The great thing about this muffin is that there are only 169 calories in each muffin. Plus all the oats make you feel full for a long time! Even Daniel and Sarah loved this! Per some reader comments, I upped the amount of cinnamon, added nutmeg to the original recipe and added some vanilla. Those were the only changes.

This morning I did a delicious variation. I reduced the amount of cinnamon in the batter to 1/2 teaspoon. Added the zest and juice of one lemon. Then I added in all of our leftover blueberries. I doubled the batch and served them to my picky eaters! Even Sarah, who swears that all cooked blueberries are awful, loved them. I don't think they will make it to tomorrow.