Apple Gluten Free Oatmeal Muffins

Looking for gluten free muffins? These gluten free oatmeal muffins are spiced and lightly sweet, featuring apples, cinnamon and nutmeg. (They’re also dairy free!)

Let’s be clear: these gluten free muffins are for all eaters! They just conveniently happen to be gluten free. This gluten free oatmeal muffin recipe came about because, confession: Alex and I are not muffin people. To us, muffins are an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. Right?! And it’s not that we’re so un-fun we don’t want to eat cake for breakfast. Maybe if we were 12 again? But in adulthood, we’ve found that cake for breakfast really messes up how we feel the rest of the day: sugar crash, hungry 30 minutes later, shaky, upset stomach. So we wanted to create a muffin that was nutrient dense and satisfying, but at the same time tastes good. Meet our gluten free oatmeal muffins! Keep reading for the recipe.

A note on gluten free flour

In very few of Alex and my recipes do we use gluten free flour. Instead, we try to make gluten free items with natural, whole food ingredients like oat flour and almond flour. Using this philosophy does make it difficult in baked goods to come up with a suitable texture. Gluten does go a long way in bringing in a fluffy, beautiful muffin texture. However, the texture of these muffins is a nice compromise. We’ve used oat flour and rolled oats as the base for the muffin. As you can see, they’re a little denser and not as tall as a typical muffin. But these gluten free muffins are moist and beautifully fluffy.

How to make gluten free muffins

This gluten free muffins recipe is an update to an older recipe of ours, but totally revamped with the help of our star recipe tester Rochelle. Rochelle loves baking and muffins, which made her the perfect collaborator for making gluten free oatmeal muffins. She kept the concept of our previous muffins, but added a few twists. Here are the secrets to these NEW gluten free oatmeal muffins:

• Oat flour: Instead of all purpose flour, these gluten free muffins feature oat flour that you can make in a food processor! All you do is process normal rolled oats until they are ground into a fine flour. If you don’t have a food processor, you can purchase oat flour at a grocery store or online.
• Coconut oil: Coconut oil keeps the muffins moist and also dairy free. Make sure to follow the instructions about using coconut oil as it can sometimes solidify when mixing with cold ingredients. If you’re not into coconut oil and eat dairy, you could use butter as well.
• Maple syrup: We love using natural sweeteners in our baked goods, and maple syrup brings the right gentle sweetness here.
• Cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice:  This blend of spices helps to evoke the feeling of apple cinnamon oatmeal.
• Apples: To bring more moisture and a hint of sweet, mixing in diced apples makes the perfect texture.

This recipe is…

This Gluten free apple muffins recipe is vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free and naturally sweet.

Gluten Free Oatmeal Muffins

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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 1)

5 from 2 reviews

• Author: a Couple Cooks
• Prep Time: 15
• Cook Time: 25
• Total Time: 40 minutes
• Yield: 12
• Category: Muffins
• Method: Baked
• Cuisine: American

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Description

Looking for gluten free muffins? These gluten free oatmeal muffins are spiced and lightly sweet, featuring apples, cinnamon and nutmeg.

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Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups oat flour OR rolled oats processed in a food processor into a flour consistency (see below)
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled (substitute butter if desired)
• 1 cup milk (non dairy milk, for dairy-free), room temperature
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup diced apple (1 medium apple)

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Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.
2. To make the oat flour, place 1 1/2 cups rolled oats in a food processor and process until it is very fine. (Note: Do NOT try this with steel cut oats, as they are a very different texture from rolled oats!)
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, oats, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and kosher salt.
4. Melt and cool the coconut oil. Bring the milk and egg to room temperature (so that the coconut oil does not turn solid when mixing). In another bowl, mix together the milk, egg, maple syrup, and vanilla, then gradually whisk in the coconut oil.
5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until smooth. Allow to sit for 10 minutes while the oats rehydrate.
6. Meanwhile, dice the apple. After 10 minutes, gently fold in the apples to the batter. Then use a 1/4 cup measure to spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. 
7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until puffed and golden.

Keywords: gluten free, oatmeal, oatmeal flour, muffins, gluten free oatmeal muffins, homemade, easy

About the Authors

Sonja Overhiser

Cookbook Author and writer

Sonja Overhiser is author and recipe developer of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the “best vegetarian cookbooks” by Epicurious, and a recipe developer and healthy & sustainable food advocate behind the award-nominated food blog A Couple Cooks.

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Alex Overhiser

Cookbook Author and photographer

Alex Overhiser is photographer and recipe developer of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the “best new cookbooks” by Bon Appetit, and a recipe developer, photographer, and technical expert at A Couple Cooks.

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