These muffins look a little (or a lot) stranger than “normal” muffins, but I like them! They have a lemony-sweet flavor and I like seeing cardamom on any ingredient list (my favorite sweet spice!). The muffins come out just slightly gooey from the blueberries, but they won’t crumble apart on you. They are a great grab-and-go breakfast muffin for me or when I’m in the mood for a treat with my tea or coffee. Original recipe from Forks Over Knives.

Ingredients

Servings: a dozen muffins

• 12 medjool dates, pitted and chopped (about 1½ cups or 8 oz.)
• 1 cup plant-based milk (I used almond)
• 1½ cups rolled oats
• ¾ cup millet
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. ground cardamom (or sub 1½ tsp. cinnamon, but cardamom is way better!)
• ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp. lemon zest, packed
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (don’t thaw them if they’re frozen, I used frozen for mine and it was a bit gooey)
• Optional: ½ cup roughly chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the dates and milk in a small bowl and set aside to allow the dates to soften a bit.

In your blender or food processor (a blender works better), grind the oats and millet into flour, then pour it into a mixing bowl. Add the baking powder and cardamom and stir to combine. 

Place the dates and milk mixture into the blender and blend until very smooth. Add this to the flour mix, then add the applesauce and lemon zest. Mix it all together until everything is wet and combined. 

Gently fold in the blueberries (and walnuts, if using). The original recipe notes that the blueberries tend to sink to the bottom (though that was not my experience, as you can see in the pictures I took), so if you want to even them out a bit more you can add the blueberries, pour on a little more batter, then add a few more blueberries on top.

Spoon the batter into your muffin pan about ¾ full. A silicone pan worked great for me, but the recipe notes that, if you don’t have a silicone pan, you need to line your muffin pan with parchment paper cups because regular paper cups stick to the muffins.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. The muffins are done when the tops have begun to brown and you start seeing cracks. You can also test them with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan about 15 to 20 minutes before removing them.