Muffins, muffins, and more muffins.

I've been on a muffin kick lately. It's my little guy's FIRST BIRTHDAY on Saturday so I'm playing with recipes to find the perfect one. I think I've eaten so many muffins in the last two weeks that I may have given myself a muffin top. Not kidding. Not really funny. Still working out. Not to be fit but to be able to keep up with Lucas as he gets older and more mobile. 

L's slightly allergic to eggs so it needs to be egg free. He seems to like chocolate but not enough to make it a chocolate cupcake. (Learned that after I ate essentially all the chocolate cupcakes I made because he didn't really love them that much.) I'm trying to find a muffin that he will love flavor and texture-wise but that I will love ingredient wise. Not too much sugar, hidden fruit, maybe heart healthy grains...

First up we have the delicious, chocolatey gluten free, egg free, dairy free muffin. Sounds super healthy and unpalatable, right? It's not. This was my favorite but L didn't seem to really care for it. He'd kind of let it dribble out of his mouth all chewed up, which is usually what he does with stuff he doesn't like. It's rare because he loves almost every thing. I found the recipe on The Beaming Baker's site and followed the recipe with minimal substitutions. I used honey instead of maple syrup, since L's pretty much at that one year and has been given the green light to eat honey, and omitted the coconut sugar since I didn't have it on hand. I made my own oat flour and while I didn't get it as fine as the recipe called for [I was working with a very unpredictable nap time window] I actually liked the texture. It was slightly crunchy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside and stayed that way for as long as the muffins lasted. Which was about a day and a half. 

Next up was The Urben Life's recipe for a banana chocolate chip muffin. L loves banana bread, and I was thinking maybe a banana chocolate chip muffin would be nice. These definitely were. The only substitution I made was for the sugar. I subbed honey for the sugar. Approximately 1:1. I really liked how these turned out. Not as much as the all chocolate ones, but L seemed to like these a bit more. 

And last but not least was The Urben Life's recipe again but this time without any chocolate chips. Same flavor, not as chocolatey but I'll be completely honest..kinda boring. 

All in all, I think I might bake L a pie for his birthday. Apricot. I know how to bake pies. He really likes apricots and they are currently on sale at the store. Win, win, win.