I am so excited to finally learn about vanilla beans! Powerful little suckers they are!
A little goes a looooong way and so much stronger than extract.
It comes in a long stem, you cut the stem in half long way and then carefully open up each piece to reveal the bean part of it. Using the back of your knife (not the sharp side but the straight side) you scrape from one end down to get all the good stuff out!
They can be expensive so this is why I always use extract, but this was a great way to take muffins from good to extraordinary with just one ingredienent!
Check out notes below the recipe for conversions. You can use extract in place of the vanilla bean, but I say try it out at least once! It reminds me of vanilla bean ice cream….beats regular vanilla any day because of the bean!
Vanilla Bean Blueberry Oat Muffins
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
- 4 tablespoons applesauce, unsweetened
- 2 tablespoons honey*
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 whole Native Vanilla vanilla beans**See notes for conversion
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (optional, recommended)
- Dash of salt
- 4 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup blueberries
For the icing:
- 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk or water
- Dash of residual vanilla bean
Directions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray or line muffin pan.
- In a large bowl using a whisk, beat eggs for 1 minute. You will get a work out here!
- Add sugar, applesauce, honey, oil, and vanilla bean. Whisk to break up the vanilla.
- Add baking powder, protein powder, and salt, stir to combine.
- Add oats, mix well. Option to fold in blueberries or skip to the next step.
- Using a 1/3 scoop, spoon mixture evenly into 10 muffin cups. Pressing down after each scoop, mixture should be filled to the top of each cup.
- Top with blueberries, gently pressing them into mixture.
- Bake 15 minutes.
For the vanilla icing:
- In a small dish, add 2 tablespoons of liquid to the confectioners sugar, add little by little. Add more liquid to thin out or add more powder to thicken.
- Add any residual vanilla bean to the mixture to add flavor.
*Substitute honey for maple syrup
**1 teaspoon of vanilla extract is equal to one-2 inch piece of vanilla bean. So, 1 typical vanilla bean will equal 3 teaspoons extract. Use 12 teaspoons in place of vanilla bean in ingredients.
