Strawberry chia seed muffins

Oooh these were really yummy. Many gluten-free recipes I come across seem to have a whole lot of sugar added to them, and thankfully, when I came across the one that inspired this, I had to try it out, since it didn't add too much. Of course, since my cooking and baking tends to be spontaneous and I rarely plan ahead, I have to adapt things to whatever I have already at home. So my recipe actually has even less grams of sugar, because I used a zero-calorie stevia sweetener. Some of the other main things I adapted: I didn't have oat flour, so I ground up some rolled oats instead, and I swapped out the tapioca starch the original recipe called for for potato starch. I also added chia seeds to pack in more nutrients, which is the most likely reason I needed to use nearly twice as much milk in my recipe, because they soak up a lot of the liquid.

Anyway, I thought they turned out great, and I like that they are only lightly sweet, and filling enough with their fiber content to satisfy me (I ate two, since they are kind of little). They will be perfect to freeze and have a nice take-along breakfast or snack!

Adapted from Gluten-free Strawberry Whole Grain Muffins by Gluten-free Goddess

Makes about 17 muffins

Dry ingredients:

1/2 cup fine almond meal or almond flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 tbsp potato starch
2 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 to 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Wet ingredients:

Egg substitute:
2 tbsp flaxseed meal + 6 tbsp hot water 

1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup Truvia or other zero-calorie granulated baking sweetener with Stevia
1 tsp almond extract 

1-1/2 cup flax milk (or your preferred non-dairy milk) 

1-1/2 cup chopped strawberries, thawed from frozen or fresh 

Optional: 1/4 cup slivered almonds 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Line cupcake tins with 18 paper liners and spray the liners lightly with cooking spray.

Combine all the dry ingredients except the oats in a large bowl.
Grind oats in food processor to make about 1/2 cup medium-coarse ground flour. Add to dry ingredients. Whisk ingredients together well.

Make the egg substitute in a small bowl and let it sit for about 2 min. Add this to the other wet ingredients, except for the milk and strawberries. Add this mixture to dry ingredients. Add about half of the milk, and mix ingredients well. If the batter is too thick, keep adding milk until you get a semi-thick muffin-like batter. It should not be soupy like pancake batter though.

Gently fold in the strawberries. Fill the muffin liners to the top (about 1/3 cup each).
Optional: sprinkle slivered almonds on top of muffins before baking.

Bake for about 35-40 min.
Let cool in pans for about 5 minutes, then place muffins on cooling racks.

Once they are completely cooled, you can put them on a baking sheet, cover, and put them in the freezer to keep them fresh for later. (once they are frozen, you can pile 'em back up in a freezer bag or container to save space, but initially they need to be spaced out like this for even freezing)

Nutritional data from MyFitnessPal.com for 1 muffin (of 17 muffins):
149 kcal
7 g fat
3 g protein
22 g carbohydrate
4 g fiber
6 g sugar

Here is a shot of a muffin with sinfully-delicious-yet-guilt-free cashew nut cream (see post):