Gabby’s Eats: Strawberry Banana Protein Muffins

“Let’s bake something with strawberries!” had been a frequent request from Gabby over the last couple of months.  Unfortunately this persistent asking happened to occur during the late Winter/early Spring when strawberries just are not in season in California. (Yes, we could have used frozen but fresh ones taste so amazing.) I would explain this to Gabs but it didn’t really stop her from asking from time to time. So she was very excited indeed when strawberries popped into stores in May and the time had finally come to be able to use them in a recipe. Gabby enjoys the protein muffins I make for breakfast, namely the morning glory flavor.  She decided that another version, a strawberry banana protein muffin, would be just her choice for the our beloved berries.  Her enthusiasm prompted her to initially suggest adding a full 2 cups chopped to the recipe, which was a bit overzealous and led the muffins to be too soft. We scaled them back to 1 ¼ cups and that was just the right amount.  They came out delicious and this recipe was very well worth the wait!

  Ingredients:

2 cup rolled oats (old fashioned, not quick, use a gluten-free oats if you are on a gluten-free diet)

3/4 cup all purpose (or oat flour, which can be used on a GF diet)  

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

6 Tablespoons protein powder (preferably natural unflavored)

3 large sized over ripe bananas, mashed

6 Tablespoons liquid egg white

6 Tablespoons (packed) brown sugar

1/4 cup milk (we used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1.25 cups finely chopped fresh strawberries

cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder and protein powder in a small bowl.  

In a large bowl, mix together the mashed banana, brown sugar, egg whites, milk and vanilla. Add the oats/flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well. 

Fold in the berries. Spoon into 6 jumbo size muffin pan cups (or 6 small ramiken/small oven safe baking dishes) or 12 regular sized coated with cooking spray and bake on the bottom rack of the oven for about 30-35 minutes for the regular size, and 35-40 minutes for the jumbo, until top is firm, lightly browned and a toothpick comes out mostly clean when inserted into the center.

Makes six jumbo or 12 regular servings

Serving size 1 very large muffin Calories 290  Protein 13  g Carb 52  g Fiber 7  g Sugars 20  g Fat 3.5  g Saturated fat  0 g Sodium 280 mg

Serving size 1 regular sized muffin Calories 145  Protein 7  g Carb 26  g Fiber 3.5 g Sugars 10  g Fat 2  g Saturated fat  0 g Sodium 140 mg

Gabby's Shot