Blueberry Baked Oatmeal (sugar-free)

This is the next in my series of baked oatmeal recipes. The previous recipes were:

• pumpkin baked oatmeal
• peanut butter baked oatmeal
• maple baked oatmeal

Of those three, the maple remains the big favorite for both my husband and I, though he's generally pleased with them all. Making this into a blueberry version was slightly tricky for a few reasons. First of all, I wasn't sure about the moisture balance because the blueberries are going to add moisture. Also, since the berries are frozen, I had to consider the baking time. I ended up adding 10 minutes to the usual time (total of 40 minutes) to compensate for the frozen berries. I also wasn't sure whether to go with my standard addition of lemon to blueberries, or to go for vanilla and cinnamon. My husband weighed in on the choice of lemon, so here is what I came up with:

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

• 1 egg
• 1/2 granular Splenda (or use white sugar)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (I made my own)
• 1/4 cup skim milk (or use whatever milk you want)
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup frozen unsweetened blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F./175 degrees C.

Grease and flour a loaf pan. Whisk the egg, applesauce, milk, Splenda, vegetable oil, salt, and lemon juice together until thoroughly mixed. Add the oats, sprinkle the flour and baking powder on top and mix with a spoon until the flour and baking powder are mixed in and the oats are thoroughly moistened. Stir in the frozen blueberries. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until set (check with a toothpick or tester). Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes, remove from the loaf pan and allow to cool completely before cutting. Cut into 6 servings.


whole loaf: 852 calories
1 serving (1/6):142 calories per serving


I think that this should have cooled a lot longer in the pan as it fell apart when I took it out and put it on a rack. As it disintegrated on the rack, I rapidly put it on a plate for cooling. It was, however, very tasty and had a nice, moist texture. It is very reminiscent of my similar whole wheat blueberry bread, though I'm guessing this is healthier since it mainly uses oatmeal rather than flour.

I don't think that I will alter the recipe though it may be advisable to give it 45 minutes in the oven if you're using a glass dish as I did (it's so moist that it's not likely to dry out), but I do think I'll cool this to nearly room temperature in the dish rather than remove it to a rack for cooling. Due to the heavy concentration of blueberries, I think it needs to firm up more before removing it from the pan. The only thing I would advise is to loosen it in the pan before it fully cools (run a knife around the edges and gently lift a bit) to make sure it comes out smoothly when cooled.

The bottom line is that this is really yummy, and will definitely be repeated again and again.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Whole Wheat Blueberry Bread (Sugar-free)

Update (April 17, 2010) and re-posting: this recipe was altered to use less oil and applesauce and I've added notes about how these changes affected the bread.

I've been trying to finish off the bag of frozen blueberries that we bought at Costco before we make our next trek there (at which point I will buy a new bag and start the process all over again). I also wanted to take my sugar-free whole wheat banana bread recipe and modify it for different fruits. What better place to start than with blueberries?

Since the basic components of the banana bread recipe like yogurt, oil, flour, and egg quantities, were sound, I mainly wanted to swap out the flavor components. That being said, bananas lend moisture and density to quick breads and blueberries do not. I decided to replace the bananas with unsweetened applesauce*. I also didn't include cinnamon or vanilla as flavorings because I didn't want to be able to taste the apple and I felt those seasonings would enhance it. I wanted the blueberries to shine through rather than for this to be an apple-berry mixture.

I don't mind being immodest and saying that this turned out fantastic. I sampled the batter and it was very "wheaty" (as raw batter can be with whole wheat flour), but very tasty. I was very keen to cut the bread and sample it right out of the oven, but waited for it to cool to just slightly warm first. I didn't want the structure to fall apart because I cut it while it was still too warm.

This is by far one of my best improvised recipes ever. One of my students made it with a 1/2 cup of brown sugar and hers turned out great as well.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Bread:

• 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce*
• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 cup plain (unsweetened) yogurt
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tbsp. Canola oil (or any vegetable oil)
  
• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat bread flour)
  
• 1 cup granular Splenda (or just use 1/2 cup of white or brown sugar)
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups frozen (unsweetened) blueberries

Mix the egg, yogurt, applesauce, Splenda (or sugar), salt, and oil in a large bowl. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and mix well. Add the whole wheat flour and stir until just moistened. Allow to rest 10-30 minutes. While the flour is resting, grease and flour a loaf pan and preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. (350 degrees F.). Stir in the baking powder until well incorporated, but do not overmix. You don't want to overwork the gluten in the flour as it will make the bread tough. Gently fold in the frozen blueberries. Pour into your prepared loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes. Note that I used a glass pan which takes longer to heat up so my cooking time (1 hour) may be longer than that needed for a metal pan.

*Unsweetened Applesauce:

You can make your own unsweetened applesauce easily in the microwave oven. Peel and core two medium apples (green or red is okay, but green apples are softer and cook faster) or one very large apple. Cut the apple roughly into bite-size pieces. Put the apple pieces into a microwave-safe dish with a lid and add about a quarter cup of water. Microwave on high power (600 W.) for between 3-6 minutes. After three minutes, check with a fork to see if they are tender and add more cooking time as necessary. The timing it takes depends on the type of apples you use. Drain the water from the cooked apple and place in a food processor with a small bowl or use your blender. Puree, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Two medium apples yielded 1.25 cups of applesauce for me.

The calories for the whole loaf are about 1220.

Notes after modifications: I reduced the applesauce and oil because the bread was so moist before. This moistness wasn't bad at all. That being said, it did tend to keep the bread from rising as well as it might and cause it to sink down further after cooling. Cutting the applesauce to 3/4 cup and the oil to 1 tbsp. had no negative impact at all, and in fact made a more "quick-bread-like" result. I think it's pretty much as close to being perfect as possible (not that it was bad at all before!).

by Shari (Orchid64)

Blueberry Slushy Dessert

I know, it looks like purple poo. :-p

Note that you'll need a blender to make this.

My husband and I bought an enormous bag of frozen blueberries at Costco and I've been trying to think of ways to use them ever since. It's not that I don't like blueberries, because I like them quite a lot. It's simply that I'm generally not eating the types of things which go well with them like oatmeal. That being said, I did actually stoop to eating oatmeal because I had the blueberries.

Lately, I'd been adding 1 or 2 tablespoons of blueberries to frozen banana drinks to get the nutrition without too much of an imposition on the taste. Again, I like blueberries, but I wanted the banana drink to be banana-flavored.

I had tried to get together a blueberry version of the banana frozen drink I had, and I could never get the balance right. Using milk in particular seemed to add a funny taste and since the blueberries are more watery than bananas, it diluted it too much. After some experimentation, I came up with the following combination which worked well:

• 1 cup crushed ice
• 1 cup frozen blueberries (unsweetened - I used Radar Farms)
• 2-3 packets of Splenda sweetener (or use whatever you like - sugar, honey, etc.)
• 1 tbsp. powdered milk
• 4 tbsp. (about 1/4 cup) unsweetened yogurt
• a squeeze or two of lemon (to taste)

Add everything to your blender and frappe until it is well blended. It'll be thick and you'll have to pause occasionally to scrape down the sides. It should be similar in thickness to gelato.

The lemon is pretty important so don't skip it. It adds another flavor dimension to this rather than leaving it tasting rather flat (which is a problem with using only blueberry in my experience). It also makes a rather large serving.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

There are two reasons to alter a recipe to incorporate whole wheat flour. One is that you have to for health reasons and the other is that you want to. Frankly, I want to, and it's not only for health reasons. White flour doesn't have the same flavor as whole wheat. In fact, it has little flavor at all which makes it great for cakes and cookies that are mainly bringing you their added flavors (chocolate, vanilla, etc.) plus sugar and butter.

For muffins though, and I mean standard breakfast muffins, not dressed down cupcakes, I like the flour to pull its own weight a little on the flavor front. Breakfast muffins, to me, ought to be somewhere between a cupcake and piece of whole wheat toast. Not so light as one and not as heavy as the other.

I searched for recipes that looked like they might suit my needs and came up with quite a lot of promising candidates. The one I settled on as a base for my recipe was at "Eat Better America". I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I wanted to use 100% whole wheat flour rather than a brown and white flour mix. I also didn't want to use honey because I don't like the texture it gives baked goods. I also skipped the brown sugar topping in favor of boosting the overall sweetness with some granular Splenda and added vanilla and cinnamon to the batter for more flavor.

Here was the recipe I made:

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

• 1 cup low fat milk (full fat is also okay)
• 1/4 cup Canola oil
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 cup granular Splenda (or just use white sugar)
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup frozen blueberries (not thawed!)

Whisk the milk, egg, oil, brown sugar, Splenda (or white sugar), salt, cinnamon, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Sift or evenly spread the flour over the liquid ingredients and gently push the flour into the liquid with a spoon. Do not mix! Just try and get the flour pushed down a bit into the liquids. Withhold the baking powder at this stage. Allow the flour to rest and absorb the liquids for about an hour or so. I let mine sit for 90 minutes, but you can do it overnight in the refrigerator if you don't want to sit around looking at your watch. This resting period will contribute to a lighter muffin with a better texture despite using whole wheat flour.

After the flour has rested and absorbed some of the liquid, sprinkle the baking powder over it and gently mix until the ingredients are moistened. If you over-mix it, you'll work the gluten in the flour too much and have tough muffins. It helps to use a folding or cutting method rather than to stir.

Grease 6-9 muffin tins. Note that you'll probably get less of a rise but bigger muffins if you load all of the batter into 6 tins. I used 9 individual metal cups to bake mine. Start preheating your oven to 210 degrees C. or 410 degrees F.

After the flour and baking soda have been cut in (the batter should be a bit lumpy), gently fold in the frozen blueberries. Note that using frozen ones will prevent you from having purple muffins. Spoon the batter into your greased muffin tin. For 9, I put about 2 tablespoons of batter into each cup.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Note that the timing really depends on a lot of factors including the type of muffin pan or tins you use, whether or not you put the tins on a baking sheet or directly on your oven rack, and what sort of blueberries you use (and how frozen they are when they go into the oven). Mine took about 35 minutes, but I had to put my tins on a ceramic baking sheet which takes a long time to heat up. I imagine that is much longer than most people will require.

The muffin I sampled and cut in half for picture-taking saw more of its blueberries fall to the bottom than some of the others.

The muffins turned out very well. The texture was light and tender, though when it was fresh the one I sampled had some of the telltale graininess that I associate with whole wheat baked goods. This is related to the fact that my whole wheat flour is not pastry flour, but rather larger grain, higher gluten whole wheat bread flour. This graininess disappears after the baked goods I make with this particular flour sit overnight and the moisture gets absorbed more thoroughly. I had half of a muffin plain and half with margarine. It was quite good both ways.

One thing that irritated me was that the original recipe said that there was enough batter for 12 regular muffins and that the tins would be full. My tins are regular size, and 9 of them were only half full. I didn't do anything that would reduce the volume of the recipe. In fact, I may have increased it a tiny amount since I added an additional quarter cup of milk, sugar, and Splenda as a substitute for the honey. The only way a dozen tins that would be filled would be if they were mini muffins. I don't know why people lie on these types of recipes, but I'm guessing it relates to keeping the calorie counts more impressive.

Speaking of calorie counts, these muffins as prepared according to my recipe and with making 9 muffins are 195 calories each. If you use sugar or whole milk (or make 6 big muffins), that'll bump up a bit per muffin.

by Shari (Orchid64)