Variety is the spice of life. But routine is the method of survival for the keto parents. So we do a bit of both to keep everyone happy.

I just said that I haven’t been developing new recipes lately, didn’t I? Didn’t I say that we have our happy rut and Nora is pretty happy with her regular foods? Well, the only constant is change.

Nora had been happy eating her pumpkin cheesecake bars for breakfast for at least 2 months. Before that it was the hazelnut breakfast cookies. I would make up a big batch then freeze some and take them out as needed. I could get away with baking a breakfast about once per month. And there is nothing better than pulling out an all-in-one breakfast in the morning. When we started this, we were making scrambled eggs everyday, but that just wasn’t sustainable.

But Nora is tired of her pumpkin cheesecake bars now so it was time for a new recipe. I thought about going back to the hazelnut breakfast cookies, but my sister just sent me this recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly Breakfast Bake. She’s a good cook and nutritionist, so she can spot a recipe that could be modified for Nora’s needs. I played around with the recipe this morning and found another winner! At 3.5:1 and 167 calories, we can pull it out of the fridge and plop it own at breakfast time.

You can see that the original recipes is dairy-free, using almond milk and coconut milk. I substituted heavy cream and coconut oil, but if you are doing dairy-free but still want a higher ratio, you could use coconut milk or almond milk where I used cream here. My version is also gluten-free, whereas the “Uncle Sam” cereal in the original is made primarily from whole wheat. The psyllium husks and flaxmeal seemed like a natural substitute and packs in a lot of fiber. Nice way to start the day.

PBJ Breakfast Muffins
(makes 12)
50 g Bob’s Red Mill hazelnut meal
12 g Bob’s Red Mill Organic Golden Flaxseed Meal
12 g Whole Psyllium Husk (from our local natural foods co-op)
18 g Ultimate Nutrition whey protein powder
0.5 g salt
2 g vanilla extract
1 g Baking Powder
3 g ground Cinnamon
50 g Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter
190 g Organic Valley Heavy Whipping Cream
60 g coconut oil, melted
72 g raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Measure and mix the dry ingredients into a bowl. Measure and mix the wet ingredients into a separate bowl. Be sure to get the peanut butter well incorporated, along with the melted coconut oil. It needs to be evenly distributed.

Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix very well, until even. The psyllium husk needs a few moments to absorb the liquid, and when it does it will be a thick batter.

Measure 33 g of batter each into 12 silicone muffin cups. Place 6 grams of frozen raspberries on top of each–you can break them up and push them in a bit to get them nicely distributed.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. The fat will bubble up while the edges brown. The bubbles will subside when you pull them out of the oven to check them. All of the fat re-incorporates into the muffins as they cool, and they should come out of the silicone cups easily when they are completely cool.

You could certainly add a few drops of no-carb sweetener if preferred. If you need a higher ratio, it would be lovely with whipped cream on top. Or with greek yogurt mixed down with English Double Cream for more calories.

Or if you need to use a non-dairy version and get a lower ratio with coconut milk or almond milk (you will probably need to decrease the liquid, or it may be too runny), you could boost the ratio by adding non-dairy whipped cream as well.

I just tried one, and I would eat these for breakfast myself. I think I’ll make a pan of them and cut into bars (substituting coconut milk for the cream for myself). To make this part of a MAD diet, I would back off the coconut oil and eat it with full fat Greek yogurt. Mmmm.