I started making a version of these muffins around the time baby started doing more snacking, and we’re still making them almost a year later. That’s saying a lot: baby is still finding them tasty, and I’m still finding the time to make them! Originally, it was just a way to use up his leftover baby cereal – which we had way too much of! 6 tubs of oat cereal had seemed reasonable at the time, but I hadn’t really thought about how little of the stuff they would actually eat! As I found out, not that much! Anyway, what is a mom to do with 5-1/2 tubs of leftover oat cereal? Turns out…make banana muffins!

Why do we still like them so much? Apart from being a perfect way to use up extra baby cereal, these muffins are easy (FAST) to make: throw everything into a bowl and then blend! They’re healthy, and I also found them to be a great handheld snack for baby (still do!). It’s especially nice to have a less messy option when we are on the on the go. They’re also not for baby exclusively, I’ve been known to steal a bite here and there.

I’ve seen lots of recipes for banana bread/pancakes that use oats instead of flour, so I figured that we could do something similar with the cereal. It turned out really well! Unfortunately, most of the first experimental batches rushed during nap time and not documented at all (to Royce’s dismay). It would take several tries until I was able to get something repeatable. Luckily, it’s still a pretty forgiving recipe because I still tend to be a little willy nilly when throwing things together these days.

We’ve made these enough times that the oat cereal is all gone. But, since everyone is still a fan, we made some tweaks to work out a variation of the recipe that could use regular (quick cook) oats too.

Yield: 18 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2-3 overripe bananas
• 1-1/2 cups baby (oat) cereal (or 1 cup quick oats)
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 Tbsp flaxseed meal
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Tools Required:

• immersion blender
• muffin pan (silicone preferred)

Instructions:

1. Add all ingredients to a bowl*.
2. Blend until smooth with an immersion blender.
3. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes (for small muffins), or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Variations:

• substitute melted coconut oil for olive oil
• substitute chia seeds for flaxseed meal
• add some sweetener (e.g. maple syrup if desired)

FAQs, Tips, Troubleshooting:

• *I know we said bowl, but I actually prefer to make these in a 1L container (or empty large yogurt tub). It’s the perfect size and I find it nicer for using an immersion blender.
• On mixing: If you’re using baby cereal, you can get away with just mashing your bananas and then mixing everything else by hand. We haven’t tried it but I suspect that a blender would work just as well.
• I like to bake these in silicone muffin cups. That way I can put any I won’t use in the next couple of days straight into the freezer. It’s easy to pop them out of the moulds once they’re frozen and place in a storage bag.