Blueberry, chocolate and oat muffin loaf

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What do you do when your spouse wants a loc-cal muffin snack, and you don’t have a muffin pan to bake them in? You could chance the epidemic and go buy one (double masked and vaccinated of course) or you could turn the problem into an opportunity. Bake a loaf with all the ingredients of a muffin! So, I did. Over and over again at Alicia’s request (it’s her breakfast and her snack now).

Muffins and coffee were a staple breakfast at our neighborhood diner in Yorktown Heights, NY—“Pete’s.” It was actually called something different, but to everyone in the vicinity it was always “Pete’s.” It was open just about 24/7/365 and it seemed that Pete was always there. His wife was always stationed at the till and the same couple of waitresses were ready to sit down and trade life stories and joking insults with the patrons.

Pete’s diner was—like many old diners—shaped like an old railway dining car. It was featured in a National Geographic story on diner architecture. However, Pete’s food was nothing to write glowing reviews about. Finding chicken in chicken soup was a novelty. When Alicia did find a small piece of meat in the soup one day Pete said: “I’ll have to talk to the chef about that!”

His muffins were, how shall I put it? Interesting. Very sweet and full of useless calories. “Made on the premises,” he proudly proclaimed. I believed him. But Pete had a heart as big as all of China. He would baby-sit our plants if we went away. He allowed our dog to nestle under our table contrary to the local ordinances, he worried about any regular who missed more than a few days of dropping in for coffee.

When he retired and went to live with his daughter in New Mexico Alicia and I grieved, and we left soon after. Those who bought the diner turned it into a flashy joint with much better food and utterly no reason to go there. When did a native New Yorker ever go to a diner for the food?

So, this recipe is dedicated to Pete and his diner but not his cooking.

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Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 2/3 cup blueberries
• ¼ cup dark sugar-free baking chocolate
• 1 ¼ cups skimmed milk
• 2 tbsp raw honey
• 2 tsp stevia blend sugar substitute
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 90g (3 oz) lite olive-oil based spread, melted

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‍Directions:

Step 1

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly “grease” (using olive-oil spray) a non-stick loaf pan (I used two pans).

Step 2

Sift flour into a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup oats, chocolate and blueberries. Stir to combine. Make a well in the center. Combine milk, egg, spread and honey in a bowl. Pour milk mixture into the well. Using a large spoon, stir to combine.

Step 3

Spoon mixture into the loaf pans until they are half full. Sprinkle the mixture with a few oats. Bake for 20 minutes or until a sharp knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 1 minute. Allow to finish cooling out of the pans.

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‍Serves: The mixture makes the equivalent of eight large muffins.

‍Energy: 340 kJs (85 calories) per muffin