HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY GINGERBREAD OATMEAL MUFFIN

 

KEY INGREDIENTS TO MAKE HEALTHY GINGERBREAD OATMEAL MUFFINS

Let’s go over what you’ll need to make these healthy gingerbread oatmeal muffins! I’m hoping that your cupboards already hold common baking staples like baking powder, vanilla, and salt, so we’ll focus on the more interesting ingredients.

Oats. I’m sure you guessed this would be an ingredient from the moment you read the recipe title! To make these gingerbread muffins, you’ll use instant

oats.

Tip: If you’d like to make your healthy gingerbread oatmeal muffins gluten-free, then use certified gluten-free instant oats. They work perfectly!

Flour. When developing this healthy muffin recipe, I wanted to use some type of whole wheat flour, so I tested both regular whole wheat flour and white whole wheat flour.

Spices. They provide half of the iconic gingerbread flavor! Well… One in particular does. No surprises here — it’s ground ginger!

Molasses. This is just as important as the ginger… Molasses provides the other half of the iconic gingerbread flavor.

Sweetener. For the rest of the sweetness in these gingerbread oatmeal muffins, I turned to one of my favorite ingredients: liquid stevia.

Unsalted butter or oil. Unlike many traditional recipes that call for anywhere from ¼ to ½ cup of butter or oil, you merely need ½ tablespoon for this one.

Greek yogurt. It’s another one of my favorite healthy baking ingredients! I’ve used it to make everything from muffins and scones to brownies and cupcakes to cakes and cheesecakes… And even frosting and whipped cream! In these muffins, Greek yogurt adds the same moisture to the batter as extra butter or oil but for a fraction of the calories.

Egg whites. These bind together the other ingredients, and they also play a role in the structure of your muffins.

Milk. Nonfat milk and unsweetened vanilla almond milk are the two types I most commonly use.

HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY GINGERBREAD OATMEAL MUFFINS

Gathered your ingredients? It’s time to talk about how to make the best healthy gingerbread oatmeal muffins.

Measure correctly: For the flour and oats, use this method or a kitchen scale. (← That’s the one I own!) Do not dip your measuring cup into the container to scoop out either one. This can result in adding 1 ½ times as much, and that extra flour or oats will immediately throw off the ratio of wet and dry ingredients.

For the molasses and milk, use regular measuring cups, not a kitchen scale.

“Soak” the oats. I’ve already built this into Step 2 of the recipe! You’ll mix the oats together with the Greek yogurt and molasses first, before whisking together any of the other ingredients, to let the oats begin absorbing moisture. This soaking “head start” helps them soften even more, which yields an even more moist and tender texture in your gingerbread oatmeal muffins!

Mix by hand. Put away your stand mixers and hand-held mixers! Those tend to overmix low fat batters, like this one. Overmixing often leads to a tough, gummy, rubbery, or dense texture.

Alternating additions. This technique is commonly used to make cake batter, but I find it works really well for muffin batter too. If you haven’t heard of it before, “alternating additions” is a shorthand way of saying to switch between folding in a bit of the flour mixture until it’s just incorporated, stirring in a splash of the liquid (milk, in this case!), and going back and forth until you run out of both.

Prepare the muffin pan. Another important thing to know about low fat batters? They stick to muffin pans and muffin liners like superglue. A liberal coating of cooking spray solves that.

Bake. It’s time! Slide that muffin pan of yours into the oven, set a timer.

Your muffins are done when the tops feel firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with some crumbs attached.

So go ahead and add this recipe to your Chrismas list.