First Date Anniversary ~ Hot Date Muffins

17 years ago today, my hubby and I went on our first date together. To celebrate this little anniversary, I thought I would bake him some Hot Date Muffins! 😉

I wanted to try making a muffin that was 100% fruit sweetened, with no refined sugar. These are sweetened three ways, with dates, applesauce, and a ripe banana. They are also vegan, gluten free, and almost fat free. And I should add, they are quite delicious, which is probably the most important point of all! 😉 If a recipe is super healthy but not very tasty, it doesn’t make the cut for me. My hubby and I both thought these were pleasantly surprising. (Kind of like our first date! 😉 ) They are concentrated moist sweet morsels, perfect for a quick and hearty breakfast or snack.

Hot Date Muffins

1 ¾ cups oat flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

Pinch of salt

1 ¼ cups Medjool dates, pitted

1 cup applesauce

1 very ripe banana

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

¾ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.

In a food processor, add the dates, applesauce, banana, and vanilla. Process until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until well combined. Add chopped walnuts if you are using them, and stir to distribute evenly.

Fill 12 muffin cups evenly with batter. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle of one comes out clean.

Let cool completely, or they will stick to the paper liners.