Keto-Friendly/Low-Carb Pumpkin Muffins

I know Alex hasn’t gotten a chance to post in a bit. She has some awesome guides to share but has had technical difficulties getting them up. Hopefully they will be up soon!

In the meantime, I couldn’t wait any longer to share this new muffin recipe. The weather has been getting cooler here in the middle of the country and that means it is pumpkin season! These pumpkin muffins are moist, spiced, pumpkiny, and the perfect snack for fall. The base for these muffins is almond flour. The closest store that sells almond flour isn’t all that close, unfortunately. Instead, I make my own almond flours straight from, you guessed it, almonds! Here is my guide to making almond flour:

You will need:

• 12 oz. bag of whole, raw, unsalted almonds
• a blender or food processor
• a medium bowl
•  a mesh strainer   

1. Add about 1/4 of your almonds to your blender/processor. I used my Magic Bullet, so I will now refer to the blender/processor as “the bullet”
2. Blend almond until powdery. Once you reach this point, stop immediately. If you process the almonds much longer, they will warm and begin to release their natural oils and you will have the beginning stages of almond butter!
3. Put your strainer into the medium bowl. Dump the almond flour into the strainer and gently shake the strainer to pull out the flour and leave the larger pieces in the strainer.
4. Put larger pieces back into bullet and reprocess.
5. Strain again. Now add another 1/4 of almonds to the bullet.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until you have used up all the almonds. I had a few pieces left (pictured), but when attempting to process them, they just bounced around the bullet. I just threw those out. You could also eat them. Yum!      
7. Store in your choice of container.                                     

Now that you have a stash of almond flour, let’s get on to these yummy muffins!

Keto Pumpkin Muffins:

• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (this was just laziness on my part.  You could do 1/2 t. cinnamon and 1/4 t. each of ginger, nutmeg, and allspice).
• 2/3 cup Splenda brown sugar
• 1 can pumpkin  (NOT pumpkin pie filling)                          

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease well or line a muffin pan.
2.  In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. T-Rex loves to help with this part!
3. Fill muffin tins to desired height. These muffins don’t rise much, so the point at which you fill the tin will be the height of the muffin.
4. Bake muffins 20-25 minutes. They should be well browned on the tops.
5. Allow muffins to cool, then use a fork around the edge of the tin to remove the muffins.
6. Enjoy before they are gone!  I intended to take some pretty pictures of the finished product, but they were pretty much gone right out of the oven.  Hubster and T-Rex love these things!  I have to admit that they are awesome.

Tomorrow I plan on trying out a pumpkin cream cheese frosting to put on another batch of muffins. If it turns out, I will edit this to share.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Until next time.

-Eleni

Blueberry Oat Muffins

These were so yummy and full of blueberries!

I passed the yucky processed muffins at the store the other day. It’s funny how you know they are bad for you, but they still look so good! So I decided to pick up a package of blueberries and make some myself. T-Rex and I have been on an oatmeal binge, so I thought I would find a way to incorporate that as well. Here is what I came up with, and boy are they good!

Blueberry Oat Muffins

1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. oats
1/2 c. sugar (I used 1/4 c. powdered Stevia and 1/4 c. organic sugar, but tend to limit our sugar intake whenever possible, especially when T-Rex will be consuming them.)
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
2 egg whites
1/2 c. almond milk
1/3 c. unsweetened applesauce
1 c. blueberries (you can use fresh or frozen. I used and prefer fresh)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare your muffin pan. Either properly grease tins, or use muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour, oats, sugar/sweetener, baking powder, baking soda, salt).
3. In a medium bowl, mix wet ingredients. (egg whites, milk, applesauce).
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in blueberries.
5. Fill muffin tins with batter, about 3/4 way full.
6. Bake muffins 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

I really enjoyed these. T-Rex actually helped add and stir. She was highly upset when she had to stop so we could get them in the oven. But she loved eating one for breakfast this morning!

I will try to experiment with these over the weekend to use banana and get rid of sugar. I’ll post when I’ve got the right combination.

-Eleni