I’m always on the lookout for healthy, grab-and-go snacks. My alarm goes off by 5:30 AM 5 - 6 days a week, so saving even 5 or 10 minutes in the morning by having breakfast prepared is definitely a plus. I lean towards sweet over savory when it comes to pre-workout fuel, and Jamie Eason has quite a few easy and yummy protein bar recipes on Bodybuilding.com that I have enjoyed in the past. Her
Carrot Cake Protein bars are some of my favorites, but since my kitchen is currently stocked with 14 different types of flour and I love to experiment, I decided to switch up the recipe a bit. My changes included swapping out some of the oat flour for almond flour & wheat bran, increasing the cinnamon, adding cardamom and vanilla extract, and replacing the water with a non-dairy buttermilk substitution.
Carrot Cake Protein Muffins with Almond Flour & Wheat Bran
Adapted from this recipe
Makes 12 muffins
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup wheat bran
2 scoops vanilla whey protein (I used Dymatize Iso 100)
1 tbsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 cup Ideal Brown Sweetener
1 1/2 tsp Splenda Nectresse
3/4 cup liquid egg whites
2 4 oz. jars or packs of baby carrots
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice + enough unsweetened vanilla almond milk to make 1/2 cup
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare silicone muffin cups or use the foil muffin cups with the paper insert removed.
Whisk together all dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the flour mixture. Stir only until all the flour has been incorporated; you don't want to overmix the batter or the muffins will be tough. The batter will be quite runny.
Spoon the batter into the 12 prepared muffin cups. Bake in the preheated oven for 13 – 16 (it took 16 minutes in my oven) minutes until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out mostly dry. Let cool on wire racks. Once they are completely cool, they should be stored in the refrigerator.
Nutrition Information per muffin
Calories: 66
Fat: 1.6g
Carbohydrates: 5.9g
Protein: 7.1g
Calculated on Sparkrecipes.com
I was a big fan of how these turned out. The almond flour added some healthy fat and kept the muffins moist, and the bold spices were reminiscent of fall. I’ve especially enjoyed them paired with some
Laughing Cow Cinnamon Cream Cheese Spread.
Speaking of fall, despite the fact that we are still experiencing temperatures well into the 80s here in Florida, I am very much in an autumn-like mood and decided dinner last night needed to be some form of comfort food. I made
Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pot Roast; it lived up to its name and actually was darn near perfect. My only change next time will be to add more veggies because those carrots and onions were absolutely delicious after cooking with the roast all afternoon!
