These moist, delicious muffins are really just baked oatmeal, muffin style. But they’re so easy, and so good, and also gluten and dairy-free, so I thought I’d pass the recipe along:

• 3 cups gluten-free oats
• 1 can organic coconut cream (I get mine from Azure Standard)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (*see note)
• ½ cup creamy natural peanut butter – divided and softened (you can use crunchy too!)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup, honey, or a combination of both
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips, nuts, or whatever else you want in there!

Mix the oats, coconut cream, and applesauce in a medium bowl. Let sit for 30-60 minutes to soften the oats. You can also pulverize the oats in a blender before mixing them with the liquids if you want a less oatmeal-y texture in the finished product.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add the maple syrup and vanilla, and stir, and then add 1/4 cup of the peanut butter. Mix as best you can at this point.

Add the baking powder and salt to the oats mixture and stir well. Then add the rest of the separate liquid to the oat mixture.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin tin with parchment muffin papers. Fill each muffin space halfway with the batter. Top with a dollop of the remaining peanut butter for each muffin, and sprinkle with a few chocolate chips on top of the peanut butter. Then top off each muffin with more batter.

Bake until a knife or toothpick comes out clean when poked in the center of the muffin – about 25 minutes. Pull them out of the oven and let them rest in the muffin tin for about 5-10 minutes and then pull them out of the tin to cool on a wire rack.

NOTES:

I like coconut cream in this recipe but you can use canned coconut milk or any other non-dairy milk. If you’re not worried about being dairy-free, whole milk can be used too. About 1 3/4 cups worth of milk works.

I like to keep the small individual cups of apple sauce for recipes so I don’t have to open a whole jar which we probably won’t end up eating and then have to throw away. I think I save money this way. Maybe not!

The way these are made gives you a nice gooey peanut butter/chocolate center of the muffin, but you can also just mix in all the peanut butter and chips before filling the muffin cups too.

I buy almost all of the products I used in this recipe from Azure Standard. It’s quickly becoming the main place I buy the food for my family, supplementing with local farms or grocery stores as needed. Azure likely has a drop relatively close to your home OR they also ship directly to you too. It’s great for bulk buying grains, beans, flours, salts, canned goods, etc. I love it!

Let me know what you think of the recipe if you make it!