By Wendy Gabbe Day, Guest Contributor
Raising Vegan Kids—Snackin’ on Greens!
These muffins are moist, delicious, completely fruit sweetened, and very green! What a fun and easy way for the whole family to pack in some extra veggies. Each muffin has a solid ⅓ cup of spinach, and you can’t even taste it!
If your muffins are coming out dense, try checking your baking powder freshness. Combine 1 teaspoon baking powder with ⅓ cup hot water. The mixture should bubble vigorously. We figured this out the hard way, after baking a batch of muffins and wondering why they turned out so dense. A quick trip to the store for some fresh baking powder remedied the situation. Happy green muffin making!
Magic Green Muffins
Yields 12 muffins.
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats—or oat flour
- 1 cup coconut shreds—or coconut flour
- 1 cup whole spelt flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 cup dates—pitted
- 1 ripe banana
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 4 cups spinach—chopped and packed
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Lightly oil a 12-muffin tin or use silicon muffin cups.
- Blend the rolled oats and coconut shreds in a blender, or use already prepared flour.
- Mix the flours, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
- Place the remaining wet ingredients—except the spinach—in the blender and blend until smooth.
- Toss the spinach in the blender with the wet mixture and blend until smooth.
- Thoroughly mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones.
- Fill muffin cups and bake 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Let muffins cool thoroughly.
Recipe Tips and Variations
- I enjoy blending coconut shreds and rolled oats in the blender to create fresh homemade flours. However, feel free to buy commercially ground flours. As such, I’d suggest adding an extra ¼ cup of water as commercially ground flours are finer and absorb more liquid.