Want to know why I call myself the Queen of Substitutions? Well, this recipe is a perfect example! I started with this recipe. But I had leftover instant packets of oatmeal from my last camping trip and wanted to use them up. So I replaced the oatmeal with the random flavoured oatmeal I had lying around (mixed berry, I believe), and then reduced the amount of sweetener (honey) and salt that the recipe called for to compensate.

The recipe listed about half the flour as whole wheat but I didn’t have any, so I used white flour and then replaced a quarter cup with ground flax seed. I had some Greek yoghurt in the house in a flavour that I don’t like (Key Lime. The DH did the shopping. Thanks, sweetie!) so I tossed that in. I dumped it into one big bowl and mixed it up instead of doing the dry and the wet ingredients separately because meh. I realized that my loaf pan was dirty and didn’t feel like scrubbing it before baking the bread, so I used a muffin tin.

They turned out great! They’re not super-sweet, but because the yoghurt I used was flavoured and the oatmeal was a berry flavour, the muffins ended up being just right, with a hint of fruitiness. I’ve made this loaf before with various substitutions and it works out, so I knew what I could play with. And I think that that’s the key to substitutions – replace like with like, know your boundaries, and you’re good to go!

Oatmeal Yoghurt Substitution Muffins

• just over 1 c. oats (or leftover packets of instant oatmeal, whatever flavour)
• 2 c. flour
• ¼ c. ground flax
• 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 c. probiotic Greek yoghurt, 0% fat, whatever flavour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. oil
• one large squirt honey
• 1 c. lactose-free 1% milk

Dump the ingredients (less a tbsp. of oats) in a bowl and mix together. Pour into muffin pan with liners. Sprinkle remaining tbsp. oats on top. Bake in 350 oven for about 20 minutes. Cool. Eat while patting yourself on your back for being both thrifty and healthy.

Another substitution story: I made cake pops one time and brought some over to a friend. She really liked them and I was telling her how I made them, when she commented on how I had substituted a lot of the ingredients, and I thought, huh, maybe it isn’t that common to do. Is it? Cake pops are just crumbled cake mixed with icing, on a stick, and dipped in chocolate; they’re not that hard to make.

I make my own buttercream icing using butter, icing sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, but that day I had run out of butter (quelle horreur!). So I dumped in some yoghurt. Hey, dairy is dairy, yes? And then realized I was running out of sugar. So I dumped in some leftover jam. Sugar is sugar, yes? Since the “icing” was going to be mixed with crumbled cake anyway, I knew it didn’t have to have the same consistency, just the same taste and texture – those were my boundaries.

Then I mixed the cake with the “icing”, made the balls, stuck the sticks in them, froze them, and went to dip them in the chocolate. But…I didn’t have chocolate wafers for the coating! I did have chocolate chips though! I added some vegetable oil to the chocolate chips, popped it into the microwave for a minute or so, stirred, and I was good to go! You’d think after all the replacements, they wouldn’t taste good, or they’d look weird, but no, they were awesome! I stuck them in the freezer and pulled them out when I needed a quick dessert for surprise guests, and brought some to a friend, who shared them with her son, all of whom loved them.

Moral of the story: don’t be afraid to substitute! Just replace like with like and know the ingredient boundaries. Have you ever made substitutions to a recipe? Let me know in the comments!

Next Post: Fresh Salsa Smackdown! Which recipe will win the title of the tastiest salsa around?