Oatmeal, Without A Spoon

My children start planning their breakfasts before I usually have a chance to think about it...at bedtime the night before. Last night I was tucking my daughter in, and she requested oatmeal. She always requests oatmeal. At least it's healthy, but I'm not a particularly huge fan of the mush, which means that I have cereal on oatmeal mornings. We try to limit cereal days to once or twice per week, though. I came up with an oatmeal muffin that tastes just like the maple and brown sugar oatmeal packets my kids love (we usually use half of one of the packets per child with a scoop of quick cooking oats to balance out the sugar content). My children didn't even notice the little pieces of walnuts inside, which added a nice toasty flavor to each bite. This recipe is a keeper!

Maple and Brown Sugar Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat PASTRY flour

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

2 tbsp nonfat dry milk

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

2 eggs

1/2 tsp maple extract or flavoring, optional

1/4 cup finely chopped, toasted walnuts*

granulated maple sugar or cinnamon sugar, for topping, optional

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (or set your delay start for the next morning, mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, stir and bake when you wake up).

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, dry milk, and walnuts, if using.

Whisk together the milk, brown sugar, maple syrup, maple flavoring, oil, and eggs. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir lightly just until mixed. Divide between the muffin cups. Sprinkle with sugar, if desired.

Bake 18-20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

*To toast the chopped walnuts, place them in a skillet. Cook over medium-high heat and shake the pan occasionally, until lightly browned and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Toasting them brings out a delicious nutty flavor, and means that you use less in the overall recipe. If you'd rather use them as a topping, double the amount to 1/2 cup and sprinkle them on top of the batter just before baking, omitting the maple or cinnamon sugar.