Low fat Raspberry and Oat Muffins

Low fat Raspberry and Oat Muffins
Home Cooking

Wait a second... did someone say low fat? And muffin?  I'm there! I was Googling food one night (basically what I do every night) when I came across this recipe for low fat raspberry and oat muffins. I originally wanted to make blueberry muffins but I remembered I had some raspberries in the freezer. This was a monetary relief since blueberries go at roughly $1000000 a punnett.

I've mentioned my attraction to oats in baking recipes before. The fact that these muffins contained oats, yoghurt and raspberries as well as being low fat made me leap for joy. I didn't literally leap for joy. What I really did (which is arguably just as crazy) was wake up at 5:30am one morning and baked these as stealthily as I could so as to not wake up my housemate, Stain. I'm not sure how successful I was but soon, the smell/promise of freshly baked muffins overrided my consideration for his sleep.


I followed the original recipe exactly. I loved the author's description of how fool-proof the recipe is. Quote from her blog: "Know these are safe, predicable muffins. After you eat one you may even want to go bungy jumping to restore the safety/risk taking balance in your life."

I've eaten a few of these now and I haven't felt any uncontrollable urges to engage in extreme sports but I can vouche that the recipe is EASY. If I, someone who is lucky to get 3 hours of sleep a night, can bake them drowsy and confused before the sun has even properly risen, then so can you.

Low fat Raspberry and Oat Muffins
Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 2 cups frozen or fresh raspberries
• 1 and 1/2 cups plain flour
• 2/3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 cup quick oats (I used traditional oats and it was fine)
• 1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup fat-free milk
• 2 tbsp olive oil or canola oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain fat-free yoghurt (I used low fat unsweetened Greek yoghurt)
• 2 egg whites

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Grease a 12 pan muffin tray or line them with patty cases.
2. Place flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix with a whisk.

3. In a separte bowl, combine the milk, oil, vanilla, yoghurt and egg whites. Stir until well blended.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, along with the raspberries. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined (don't overmix).

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin cases (I use the 2 spoon method, spooning the mixture into one then 'unspooning' into the tin with the other).

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean and the muffins are golden.

I've been eating these for breakfast the past week and I think they are a perfect morning treat. There's oat and fruit and dairy... it's everything you need at breakfast time really, only conveniently packaged into a tasty muffin.

The muffins aren't dry or bland at all. The raspberries I used were quite tart but I prefer that to something overly sweet or artificial. You can either eat the muffins fresh at room temperature (but you have to finish within a couple of days) or gladwrap individually and store in the freezer. Microwave for 20-30 seconds before eating.

I think they're fine to eat plain but after my recent batch of lemon curd, I tried them with that and it was a great combination. If you feel like getting a bit fancy, I recommend giving that a go. Otherwise, the muffins work well comando too.