Vegan muffin redux - now with nuts!
It figures that I should find the recipe I’ve been looking for on the Whole Foods website: Apple Nut Muffins, free from dairy, eggs and sugar! Sounds like the complete opposite of a muffin to me, but I dove in anyway, imparting a few minor tweaks: I added cinnamon, subbed almonds for walnuts, and added some chopped apricots for good measure. I even gave the flax eggs another try and cut down on the canola oil to compensate.
The muffins were good, but they weren’t great. The apple flavour didn’t come out as much as I would have liked (this could have been the gala apple I was using). They were also a bit dense, but this was a bran muffin after all, so what did I expect? Also, silvered almonds were the wrong cut of almond. They get kind of lost in the shuffle; roughly chopped would have been better. Almonds are yummy and should stand out from the mix.
On the plus side, the muffins were moist rather than mushy. I was impressed by their sweetness, despite the lack of sugar. The raisins and apricots compensated amply. Apricots: a stroke of genius! I think next time I’ll skip the raisins altogether. The crowning touch was a single almond placed on top of each muffin during baking providing a special roasted treat, especially when in the vicinity of an almond.
Apple Bran Nutfins
Dry Ingredients
* 13/4 cups whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup wheat bran
* 1 1/8 TB baking powder
* 1/2 tsp sea salt
* 1/2 cup slivered almonds
* 1/2 cup raisins and chopped almonds
* 1/2 cup fresh apple, diced
* 1 tsp cinnamon
Liquid Ingredients
* 1 "flax egg"
* 2 TB water
* 1 cup applesauce
* 3/4 cup water
* 1 TB organic canola oil
Crowning glory Ingredients
* 8 almonds (1 for each muffin)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly oil a 8-muffin tin (WF claims 6 muffins, and I don't think 8-muffin tins really exist, but you get the picture).
In one bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together the liquid ingredients.
Combine dry and liquid ingredients stirring just enough to thoroughly blend batter. Add more bran if consistency is too thin. Scoop into muffin tin. Bake for 18 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to sit in the tin for a few minutes before removing.
You can adjust the sweetness by tweaking the water to applesauce ratio.
And speaking of applesauce, I've discovered that I'm an applesauce fan... I warmed some up with cinnamon for desert the other day and it brought me back to a special place in time when I used to eat more polish food. I bet these muffins would be good with a little applesauce smeared on top of them. Or peanut butter. Or straight up butter, but that wouldn't be very vegan.
