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These Gluten Free Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins are the real deal. They are made with oat flour, packed with cranberries and topped with the best oat crumble. They are easy to make, so delicious and make a great on-the-go breakfast or holiday brunch muffin.
Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins
These Healthy Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins just so happen to be gluten free and are the perfect seasonal muffin made with pumpkin and dried cranberries. These muffins may be healthy, but they taste like the REAL DEAL. They’re soft, moist and oh-so-delicious. They are the perfect fall breakfast or holiday brunch muffin that everyone will love. Plus, they’re nut-free! That means they are safe for those with allergies, or to send to school with your kids. Keep a batch in the freezer and pop in the lunch box in the morning and these healthy oat muffins will be ready to go by the time lunch time hits. Who’s ready to make them?
Ingredients for Pumpkin Oat Muffins
Ingredients for Pumpkin Oat Muffins- Pumpkin Puree
- Oats and Oat Flour
- Sweetened Dried Cranberries (look for the ones that are sweetened with apple juice)
- Eggs
- Coconut sugar
- Oil (we use avocado oil for the healthy fats)
- 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
- Milk of choice (we used almond milk)
- Coconut Flour
- Baking Soda and Baking Powder
- Butter or Coconut Oil
- Cinnamon
- Salt
Why We Soak the Cranberries
Why We Soak the CranberriesThis recipe calls for sweetened dried cranberries. Look for the ones at the store that are sweetened with apple juice, if you can, to keep these refined-sugar free. In the recipe, we call for soaking the cranberries briefly in hot water. This is done because typically dried cranberries can be pretty tough, and when we baked them up they felt out of place in the soft muffin. Soaking them in water while you get the rest of the batter ready allows them to soften and plump up, which makes them a great texture for the muffin.
Dried Cranberries vs. Fresh Cranberries
We don’t recommend using fresh cranberries in this recipe, as they’ll be quite bitter and we aren’t sure they will cook in the alloted amount of time that the muffins need to bake.
What kind of oat flour is best to use?
As we’ve said in previous oat flour recipes, we recommend you buy premade oat flour. It isn’t expensive and it is easy to purchase in most stores. However, if you want to make your own oat flour, you certainly can. We just recommend you try to get it as fine as possible.
How do you measure oat flour
If you have an electronic kitchen scale at home, it’s best to use it here to measure oat flour. Oat flour can be tricky to measure as it can be easily compacted, even straight from the bag. The same goes for coconut flour because such a small difference in measuring it can impact a recipe because it is an absorbent flour. So we’ve included the weight in grams here. Any electronic kitchen scale can switch between grams and ounces, and grams are more precise so we’re offering that. If you don’t have a scale: lightly packing the oat flour into the cup measurement gets you as close to the correct measurement as possible. For coconut flour, scoop it in the tablespoon and then level it off.
How to store Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins
We’ve tested storing these at room temperature covered loosely, in an air tight container and in the freezer. They all work! But we prefer to keep these at room temperature covered (in a non-air tight way) for two days at most. The muffins get more moist as the days go on, especially in an airtight container, which can make them feel dense.
So if you want to keep them the freshest, you can store in the freezer. If you are packing these for lunches for kids, or a snack for yourself, you can take them from the freezer the morning of and place in a container. In an hour or two the muffins are defrosted and ready to eat.
If you like this healthy pumpkin recipe, check out these others:
If you like this muffin recipe, check out these others:
- Gluten Free Apple Muffins
- Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffin
- Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins
- Coffee Crumb Cake Muffins
HEALTHY PUMPKIN OATMEAL MUFFINS
Ingredients
- For Pumpkin Muffins
- 2/3 cup sweetened dried cranberries
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup coconut sugar
- ⅓ cup avocado oil see note
- 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
- ¼ cup milk of choice we used almond milk
- 1-1/2 cups 180g oat flour
- 2 tablespoons 15g coconut flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Streusel:
- 1/3 cup oat flour
- ½ cup old fashioned oats
- ⅓ cup coconut sugar
- 3 tablespoons butter melted coconut oil
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a 12 cup muffin tin with silicone or parchment paper liners.
- Place cranberries in a heat proof bowl and pour enough hot water over them to cover. Let soften while you make the muffin batter.
- In a large bowl add eggs, coconut sugar, oil, pumpkin puree, and milk and whisk together to combine.
- Add oat flour, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and mix with a spatula until smooth.
- Drain cranberries and fold into the batter.
- Make the streusel: Combine oat flour, coconut sugar, butter and salt in a bowl and mix together.
- Fill each muffin cup ¾ full. Top each muffin with about 1 heaping tablespoon of the streusel.
- Bake in the middle rack for 18-20 minutes, or until the muffins spring back when touched.
Notes
- You can substitute any oil you typically use. We regularly use avocado oil, but any other neutral tasting oil will work here.
Could chopped walnuts be substituted for the dried cranberries?
Sure!
These turned out so good! I used fresh cranberries because we buy them in bulk during the holidays and had a ton available. I did not rehydrate them (if that wasn’t obvious lol!!). They were definitely not too tart! I chop them fine in a food processor and I think that helps with the tartness. My kids love them! I used pumpkin spice too instead of just cinnamon, since I had some and don’t use it much. Hope that helps someone thinking about using fresh! ?
Cant wait to try these!! Has anyone used fresh cranberries? Wondering if they would add too much moisture ?♀️
Would be tart!
these were fine – but just a head’s up – the nutrition information is WAY off – I got 238 calories per muffin with 10g fat and 35 carbs and i followed the recipe closely
These were great! I was nervous bc I have to use an egg substitute but they came out perfectly. (Used the bobs red mill egg replacer)
TIp: I took the advice to use a food scale for the flours—I really recommend this If you can do it! For me the 180 grams was two heaping cups when I poured it (would definitely be less and closer to as described in the recipe if you compacted it by measuring out of the bag)
I had enough batter to fill them more than 2/3 full so I did, and they came out a perfect height although I probably cost myself some room for the streusel!
My only confusion/another tip was knowing when they were done… they initially weren’t “bouncing back” for me but I went with my gut since the streusel was getting crispy— they did start to bounce back after I had pulled them from the oven for a minute or two.
Can’t wait to see how these freeze. Might just be a go-to breakfast for us!
These are delicious! I made them last week and ate them all and then made them again a few days ago. They taste like a “normal” muffin but even better. Make them now!
AH-MAZING!! The texture is spot on!! Thank you for sharing?
These were phenomenal! Used coconut oil instead of avocado oil (as I didn’t have any on hand). Will definitely remake in the future, especially for houseguests in the fall.
I can’t stop eating them!!