Apple Oat Muffins

What do knives, scissors, bottles of liquid larger than 4oz and my apple oat muffins have in common?

Give up?  They will all get you strip searched by the TSA if you try to take them through the security checkpoint.

My sister tried to take some last year and I didn’t believe her when she told (complained to) me about it.  Seriously?  Muffins?  Um.  Let’s see…oats, apples, almond milk.  Yep.  Clearly a threat to national security.  Must have been the nail file I baked into them.

So this year, I gave my parents some to take with them when they left for Florida.

My father was dubious about getting them onto the plane after what happened to my sister, but I assured him that they were not traveling to a foreign country, so they should be just fine. (I also told them it was probably just because my sister looks a little shifty and was a whiny complainer. Hehehe)

Sure enough, BAM, they were stopped.  I am still hearing about it, and now no one will be able to talk my father into carrying so much as a stick of gum on board a flight anymore.

So if you are brave enough and not planning air travel any time soon, here is the recipe for my apple oat muffins.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rolled oats (NOT instant)
• 2 scoops of vanilla protein powder (about 1/3 of a cup each). Be careful, because some of the vanilla powders have a greenish tint that will make your muffins look a bit off)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 TBS baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Penzy’s Apple Pie Spice (or just regular cinnamon)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup (NOT a sweetened one)
• 1  1/2 cups almond milk
• 2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1  1/2 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line 15 muffin tins with paper cups
2. Grind 2 cups of the oats into flour, then put them into a medium bowl with the other cup of whole oats, the protein powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spice and stir or whisk to combine.
3. In a small bowl, combine (I whisk) all wet ingredients from vanilla extract through the apple cider vinegar.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and let the batter sit for 10 minutes or so (the baking powder will react with the vinegar and cause the batter to “fluff” up a bit.
5. Using an ice cream scoop, put the batter into the paper cups and pop them into the oven for 15 minutes.
6. Cool in the pan, till firm enough to transfer to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Enjoy!