Today marks the first day of my favorite season, fall. I absolutely love this time of year. I love watching the beautiful leaves change colors and drop from the trees, seeing porches get jazzed up with festive decor, the cool nighttime temperature and of course, all the yummy thanksgiving inspired foods….especially my favorite, pumpkin!

These yummy Gluten free Baked Oatmeal Pumpkin Pie Bites are the perfect way to celebrate the change of seasons. They are insanely delicious and you probably have most of the ingredients on hand, already. In fact, I developed this recipe after Ryder had already gone to bed and I was stuck working only with the ingredients I had in the house.

I’ve baked 72 of these bites in the last three days and every single one of them has been gobbled up. Guilty!! (We did have a couple playdates here) The pumpkin and banana keeps them so moist and at 65 calories a pop (not including the topping) they are a pretty guilt free snack.

My kids and I like these for breakfast so I top the muffins with vanilla Greek yogurt for a little added proteins. Alternatively, you could top them with a squeeze of whip cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

  

They are also super easy to make. It takes less than five minutes to prep these and you really only need one large bowl and a 24 mini muffin baking tray so clean up is breezy.

The recipe calls for 2 ripe bananas mashed. I recommend mashing the bananas with a fork, then adding the pumpkin to the bananas and mixing the two together before adding the remaining ingredients, rather than tossing it all in a blender. They seem to hold better that way.

Also, the recipe calls for maple syrup, but if you want to omit sugar, you can substitute for 1/2 teaspoon of stevia. We use stevia in place of sugar for most things in our house, though not everyone is a fan of the taste. I’ve tried quite a few brands of stevia and love the Kal brand pure stevia extract the most (Not the organic kind, which tastes a bit different to us). You can find it at Mother’s or on Amazon. It doesn’t have the bitter after taste many other brands do. However, if you haven’t used stevia before, try a bit first before adding to a recipe. Pure stevia extract is 200 – 300 times sweeter per granule than sugar. You could also use agave or honey, but you’d have to play around with the measurements. I’ve also baked a batch of these with out stevia or a sweetener replacement and they were still delicious!

 

Baked Oatmeal Pumpkin Pie Bites

Makes 24 mini muffins

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 18 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 medium ripe bananas
• 1 15 oz can pumpkin (make sure it’s just pureed pumpkin, NOT pumpkin pie filling)
• 2 eggs
• 2 Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Quick Rolled Oats
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (or substitute with alternative sweetener of choice)
• 2 Tablespoon chia seed
• 1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Topping

1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt or whip cream

Dash of cinnamon

Directions

1. Pre heat oven to 350.
2. Generously spray your muffin tin with coconut oil.
3. Mash bananas into pudding like consistency.
4. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
5. Spoon mixture into muffin tin.
6. Bake @ 350 for 18 minutes.
7. Top with Greek yogurt or whip cream immediately before serving and sprinkle with cinnamon.
8. Muffins can be stored for two days on counter without the topping.