Vegan Whole Wheat Blueberry Bran Muffins

I'm not vegan. Or vegetarian. Nor will I ever be either. But I do find it interesting to make (usually bake) things using "different" ingredients and see how they turn out. I do not have a problem with weird ingredients - I just want the results to be decent and not taste like pig slop (is that offensive to pigs? It's what they eat, right?).

I was looking for a healthy whole grain blueberry muffin recipe and I found one on food.com that happened to also be a vegan recipe. I added protein powder and specified oat bran because it is yummy. I thought it would be fun to take a break from the norm of eggs/milk/other non-vegan things in muffindom and give this a try. (When we visit Portland and go to Voodoo Doughnuts, I always see the vegan doughnut selection and wonder if they are any good...haven't tried one yet, though.)


So here we are. I actually really like these muffins. I think they will be in my breakfast rotation now!They are a little sweet/nutty/chewy, with good texture and flavor. They have a good amount of blueberries, they're moist (even though I hate that word, it is true), they're healthy, very low in fat, and entirely whole grain. With my addition of protein powder, they have almost 9 grams of protein each! And they are only 152 calories apiece! We have a winner!

Note: if you are not a fan of molasses flavor (it's kind of strong), you could use honey or agave nectar instead - they would just be a bit sweeter (or decrease the sugar also). I liked the molasses in there, but others may not.

You can see the original recipe here. Yields 12 muffins.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Bran Muffins

1 1/3 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup oat bran
4 scoops unflavored protein powder
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
8 ounces applesauce
1/4 cup molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or fozen-thawed-drained)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray or use cupcake liners (you can spray the liners, too, so the muffins come out easier).

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl; wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add the wet to the dry; mix; add blueberries.

Scoop batter equally into the 12 muffin cavities.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes. Cool in muffin tin 5 minutes, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.