Pumpkin and Date Muffins

With Fall finally here its hard not to have pumpkin on the brain.... Pumpkin recipes are often overly sweet and have no nutritious ingredients at all. In contrast this recipe is a very lightly sweetened muffin that is great for little ones, and adults too:) It is gluten free and can be made vegan if you choose to use flax eggs and non-dairy milk. The flour used in these is a whole grain combo of brown rice, and oat. The oat flour keeps these soft and light while the brown rice flour helps to keep the muffins structure. To make your own oat flour take your oats and blend them in a food processor or magic bullet! 

Ingredients:

-1 cup oat flour

-1 cup brown rice flour

-1 tsp salt

-2 tsp baking powder

-1 tbs pumpkin pie spice

Combine all dry ingredients into a small bowl and set aside

-2 large eggs

-1 tbs maple syrup

-3 dates pitted-blend 

-2 tsp pure vanilla extract

*Blend the 4 above ingredients together in a food processor or blender then transfer to a large mixing bowl. 

-1/4 cup unweetened almond butter

-1 tbs olive oil

-1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

-1 cup pumpkin

-1/2 cup skim milk (to make vegan use unsweetened almond, rice, or cashew milk)

Take bowl with dates, maple syrup, egg, and vanilla extract and add in the rest of the wet ingredients: almond butter, olive oil, applesauce, and pumpkin. Add in the dry ingredients alternating with the milk. Scoop into a lined muffin tin. I like to scoop these with an ice cream scoop to keep them all even. Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.