Making good choices in the morning is hard. You’re often running out of the door, half awake, to make it out the door on time, running after your family to make sure they all make it to where they need to go. “Where are my car keys?” or “Put on your shoes, Steven!”. Often, you end up at the local coffee shop, with their overpriced lattes and a huge case full of pastries, cake, and other baked goods, frazzled and absolutely ravenous. It’s often daunting to find a healthy choice, as most of the food is unhealthy. A lot of people default to something with fruit in it. Take blueberry muffins, for example. It has to be healthy, right? Blueberry anything tastes good, and they’re supposed to be a superfood. Plus, there’s nothing better for breakfast than a fresh baked blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee. The sweet interior is like cake, studded with blueberries, and the top of the muffin is crispy and sugary, a thing of pure love.
The problem with them is they can seriously wreck your diet. Loaded with sugar and fat, regular muffins are the same thing as eating a slice of cake for breakfast, which doesn’t sound slimming at all, blueberry or not. To put it into context, a medium blueberry muffin is 426 calories. That’s 21 syns in a single muffin! So unless you want to commit all of your daily syn allowance (and then some) to a single muffin, you have to give up your daily blueberry muffin completely, right? Not necessarily.
These lemon blueberry muffin baked oats are a twist on normal baked oats, a favorite of a lot of Slimming World dieters. But unlike many SW Baked Oats recipes, these really give you a blueberry muffin experience, without being cake in disguise. By cutting out the flour and butter found in most muffins, and replacing them with yogurt and oats, the syn count drops dramatically. Replacing most of the copious amount of sugar with sukrin sweetener goes a long way at removing empty carbs, too. But they need to taste like blueberry muffins, not just regular baked oats, to satisfy those breakfast sweet cravings. The topping does a great job of mimicking what you’re craving. It isn't syn free, but it is low enough to make these baked oats a great choice for any Slimming World devotee, and it really makes these really taste like a blueberry muffin. You'll love these!
These muffins do not have the heavy syn count of regular cake like muffins. Here’s a recipe breakdown:
Don’t let the syns scare you off, though. That is for the total recipe, which yields six servings. It works out to be about 1 syn per muffin. Much better than the day wrecking amount of syns in a regular muffin, slimming you down.
These blueberry muffins are Weight Watchers friendly as well, so even if you aren't following the Slimming World plan, these are a great choice.
So, the recipe in total is 19.5 points. While that sounds like a lot, it’s for 6 muffins. They are about 3.5 points each, so they easily make a great breakfast choice if you are following this diet plan.
These muffins are a healthy breakfast, whether you’re following a diet plan or not. They are mostly made up of oats, which are gluten free and a great source of fiber. They are also high in protein for a grain, and are loaded with B vitamins for energy, which is perfect for a breakfast food, and they keep you full for a lot longer than many other choices, so they can curb midmorning snaking. The less you are tempted, the less syns you’ll use up. The blueberries put in even more fiber, antioxidants, and are naturally low in calories and sugar. They taste great, too, adding in extra sweetness. Most of the fat in this recipe is replaced with fat free yogurt, so you still get that moist, muffin-like texture without the extra calories. Most of the sugar is substituted out for Sukrin, lowering the calories and sugar even further. The only sugar that remains is the sugar for the streusel topping, which is there for color, texture, and flavor. It wouldn’t be a muffin without that perfect, sweet, and crispy top.
Preheat oven to 180c/350f (gas mark 4)
Zest your lemon, using a microplane. Save it for juice to use on a salad or in water.
Divide your oats in half and crush one half until it’s a fine powder. A blender works well for this.
Add the oat powder and oats to a bowl, measure out 1 level tbs from the 160g and set aside for the garnish topping. With the remaining oat mixture, stir in the baking powder and baking soda.
To another bowl, add the egg, yogurt, sukrin (or other sweetener) and vanilla and whisk till all combined.
Add this mixture into flour and fold till combined, then gently fold in the blueberries and the lemon zest until fully integrated
Mist 6 muffin wrappers with cooking oil spray and spoon the batter into each wrapper equally.
With the 1 tbsp of reserved flour, add in the 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp butter and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and crumble with your fingers, then sprinkle it evenly onto the top of the batter in the muffin cases.
Place in the oven and bake for about 30-35 mins, they should be lightly golden and a skewer entered into the centre should come out clean. Allow to cool slightly and then enjoy these blueberry muffins for up to 3 days, or stick them in the freezer for up to 3 months!
Yield: 6
Calories:146
Total Fat: 3.5 grams
Saturated Fat: 1.1 grams
Total Carbohydrate: 35.5 grams
Fiber: 15.7 grams
Sugar: 3.9 grams
Protein 5.7 grams
This baked oat muffin recipe is moist and loaded with blueberries. The streusel topping on these gives you that recognizable muffin top flavor that you really crave, all while not killing your syn allowance. Great for breakfast, and full of great fiber, protein, and fruit. All while being way more healthy than a normal muffin, and gluten free to boot. What’s not to love? This recipe scales well, too, so you can make a bunch ahead of time and freeze them. Throw them in the microwave, and a hot blueberry muffin awaits, in no time at all. A perfect way to start your day.
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