Wheat-free, Dairy Free Apple-Blueberry Protein Muffins

This was one of my first ever cooking videos. I left it the way it is so you can see the evolution of the things I’ve learned over the years about how to take better and better care of my body.

We all start somewhere, and for me I’ve moved away from using processed items and towards using foods that are more whole and natural.

Since the time this video was filmed, I’ve started using sprouted grains in my cooking and baking, and tend to use real, grass-fed butter or coconut oil for baking as opposed to something like this product.

I also cook with coconut sugar as I prefer that it contains more of its natural minerals than refined white sugar.

My preferred protein powder in baking are either Egg White protein powder. You can read a pretty cool article where I picked my top 5 (from vegan to whey) and talk about how to choose the best kind and why right here.

Beefing up recipes with protein powder is really fun and easy. My good friend Casey was getting shredded for race season and I wanted to make something to support his hard work – and to show him that he didn’t have to give up tasty things like muffins to get a 6-pack!

I took an old family apple muffin recipe and added some blueberries and vanilla whey protein powder, and tweaked a couple other ingredients to come up with what I like to call…

Ultimate Apple-Blueberry Protein Muffins

Ingredients:

1 packet (or about ½ cup) vanilla whey protein powder, included and measured in with
1 ½ cups of spelt flour (*8/21/14 update, I’d suggest using sprouted spelt flour, or a gluten free flour blend)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ cup or half a stick of Earth Balance buttery sticks, melted (*8/21/14 I’d suggest using real, grass-fed butter or coconut oil)
½ cup vanilla almond milk
1 egg
¾ one large apple, grated – skin on
1 cup fresh blueberries

1. Preheat your oven to 400.
2. Mix dry ingredients together and set aside.
3. Quarter and core an apple, and grate 3 of the 4 pieces.
4. Add melted butter, milk and egg, and mix well.
5. Fold in apple and blueberries.
6. Spray muffin tins with coconut spray or olive oil spray, and evenly distribute the batter.

7. Prepare topping in a small bowl:
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup brown sugar

8. Mix together, and top muffins with a heaping spoonful.
9. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.
10. Cool briefly  in the tins.
11. Using a butter knife, slide the edge around each muffin to loosen it from the cup. Gently slide them out onto a cooling rack.