A Cup of Joy

Vegan grab and go oatmeal cups

These little cups of joy are a great source of fiber, delicious, and very filling. I love these cups because they are cheap and easy to make, a great source of fiber, and they satisfy my sweet tooth. 

If you are trying to cut out processed foods, going vegan, or just want to eat something delicious, then you must try these. I had a friend of mine who is NOT into healthy foods and thinks me going vegan is a little silly, try one of these cups. I didn’t tell her they were vegan at first or the fact there was soy milk and tofu in them. She took one bite and made the best sound a baker/cook wants to hear: “Mmmmmmmmmmmm!” She loved them! I then told her what was in them and she gave me that look of disbelief, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, they are yummy!” That was all I needed to hear to decide to blog this recipe. 

 

I found a similar recipe online through pinterest, I took that recipe and turned it into a vegan friendly recipe. If you do not wish to have them Vegan, you may want to rethink this before putting the egg back into the recipe. One egg contains roughly 200 milligrams of cholesterol, 200! The recommended daily amount of cholesterol is roughly around 300mg a day. Along with the cholesterol most eggs you buy in the grocery store have been laid by a hen that was pumped with hormones which ultimately ends up in the eggs they lay that you now eat. This is just the tip of the iceberg, I don’t want to bore you too much, I am not trying to convince anyone to go vegan or cut eggs out of their diet. I think everyone should do their own research and find what’s right for them. I do think if you can cut out some bad cholesterol, fats, oils, sugars, in any recipe and still make it taste amazing then why not try it?!? With that…lets get started

 

Ingredients

2 “eggs” We used ½ cup silken tofu as a replacement. (We used a mango flavored silken tofu found at Winco, you can use any silken tofu)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups applesauce, unsweetened
1 banana, mashed
1/2 cup Agave nectar (For the non vegans you can use ½ cup Honey.  Agave is a bit healthier and not as expensive per amount so you might want to try it out)
1/4 cup flaxseed meal, hemp would probably work as well. (This is optional, you don’t notice or taste the product but it’s a great source of fiber and cheap)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups, Old Fashioned rolled oats (not instant)  
2 3/4 cups “milk” We used soy (you can use almond, sunflower, hemp milk…)
Topping ideas:  Dried fruits, nuts, or granola for a crunch…

I forgot the cinnamon and salt in the 1st photo

Equipment needed:

You will need a bowl, muffin liners, muffin pan, whisk, ice cream scoop, measuring cup and spoons.

The How To: 

Prehead your oven to 350* And put your muffin liners in the pan. 

Put a ½ a cup of silken tofu into your bowl and whisk until it becomes smooth and liquid form. 

What the silken tofu looks like out of package

What it looks like once you wisk it

Add in Vanilla, Applesauce, and mashed up banana.

Im not a fan of making more dishes then needed to I mash the banana in my hands. This is a great step for the kids to help, you can place the banana in a Ziploc and have them mash it with their hands, or use a playdoh hammer tool. I loved helping to cook as a child and the “messy” stuff was the best!

Wisk until everything is combined. 

Add in the Agave, Flaxseed, Cinnamon, Baking Powered, and Salt, slowly Whisk until everything is combined. 

 

Add in the oatmeal, whisk again until the mixture evenly covers all the oatmeal, it will be fairly dry until the next step.

Now pour in the “milk” and whisk until combined, it will be a fairly wet mixture by then end of it all. 

Use your ice cream scoop to take heaping scoops of the batter and place into baking cups. 

Once all cups are filled, if you have any batter leftover evenly distribute into cups, or into cups that are a not as full as others. Your baking cups should be just about filled to the rim; they don’t raise much when baking.

Now you can add your toppings. I like to put a few of my items (golden rasens, cranberries) ontop of the cup then using a toothpick  stir them into the cup and then add a few more on top so when you eat them the goodies are throught the cup, not just ontop. This eliminates more mixing bowls for all the different types of cups you make. 

We made some plain, some with only one dried fruit, some with a mixture of dried fruits, then tried out a chocolate chip cup. We ended up not enjoying the chocolate chip cups as much as the plain and fruit cups. When buying chocolate chips make sure to look and see if they use milk, or milk fats. I only found one bag at Safeway that didn’t contain any milk products. 

Not a huge fan of the chocolate chip cups

Bake the cups for about 35minuts, use a toothpick to poke the center of a cup and if it comes clean then they are ready to be taken out and placed on a cooling rack immediately.

 Let them fully cool before eating, we noticed they taste better when fully cooled. Store the cups in a dry and cool place using a Ziploc bag in the pantry or in a sealed container. These keep for about a week. 

I hope you and your family enjoy these as much as we do and Happy Cooking!