Vegan Spiced Pear & Apple Muffins

I had some pears that I’d bought that I didn’t fancy juicing.. I decided that I’d make some muffins with them. It was between that and pancakes with a pear compote but I was feeling far too tired to be stood by the hob focusing in stirring or frying. This is what happens when you are dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome.

This recipe was inspired by one I found on the Tesco Realfood website but I had to adapt it to make it vegan as I more or less eat that way now with the odd egg in my diet every now and again. I was impressed with how it turned out so thought I’d share.

Ingredients

• 3 pears

• 1 apple

• 100g light soft brown sugar

• 50g coconut sugar

• 300g self raising flour

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 100ml dairy-free sunflower butter

• 180ml almond milk

• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed

• 6 tbsp water

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

In a coffee grinder, grind the flaxseed and add that to a bowl with the water. Let this sit while you prepare the rest of the mixture.

Baking hint 1:

Flaxseed acts as a leavening agent and can be used as a substitute for egg when added to water. You can use store-bought ground flaxseed if you already have that.

• The ratio of flaxseed to water is 1:3.

• 1 tbsp of flaxseed = 1 egg.

Next, sieve the flour, cinnamon and ginger into a large mixing bowl and combine. Add the sugar to the dry ingredients. Then peel, core and chop the pears and apple and add to the dry ingredients. My intention was to use only coconut sugar but I ran out. Measure 100g of butter (approx. 100ml when melted) in a pyrex jug and melt that in a bain-marie. Add this to the flaxseed mixture with the almond milk and stir.

Baking hint 2:

Some recipes call for vegetable oil as did this one. I don’t have that at home so I used sunflower butter instead which was vegan and melted that. I also do this with banana bread and prefer that to oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Grease 12 muffin cases and place in a muffin tin. Fill each case 2/3 of the way with the mixture and place in the oven for 20/25 mins till a toothpick comes out clean

Hope you enjoyed this recipe. The muffins were yummy and next time I make these, I’ll be attempting a gluten-free recipe. Have a good day my jewels.