thursday recipe: emily rose brott's apple, oat, cranberry and chocolate muffins

Some of you may remember Emily Rose Brott from one of my previous posts, especially those who love Emily's mango sorbet!

I'm happy to share with you today Emily's latest book My Secret Ingredient - don't you love the tagline? 'delicious, healthy, achievable' Isn't that what we all want?

Emily is a Melbourne mum of four (!) and a passionate cook who loves to create nutritious AND delicious meals for her family and friends.

There are over 120 recipes in Emily's new book covering breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between. Emily's recipes do not contain refined sugar, white flour, or butter due to Emily and her son being lactose intolerant. You'll be pleased to know Emily's recipes require no fancy ingredients and are easy to put together.

Now, speaking of ingredients you'll notice in this recipe Emily uses rice bran oil and wheat flour. These are two ingredients that personally I don't use, I prefer to use coconut oil, butter or almond oil and in place of the wheat flour I use spelt flour or sometimes a gluten free flour option. You can read more about rice bran oil here and here.

I'm mentioning this to highlight the fact that every family is different and every family is at a different place in their understanding of ingredients, where they come from and how they are tolerated by family members. Emily's recipe is a great foundation to create some delicious muffins from scratch and you can substitute ingredients as you need to.

apple, oat, cranberry and chocolate muffins

ingredients

2 eggs

½ cup (125ml) rice bran oil

½ cup (150g) honey

2/3 cup (75g) rolled (porridge) oats

1 ½ cups (240g) wholemeal (whole-wheat) self-raising (self-rising) flour

2/3 cup (165ml) orange juice

2 apples, peeled, cored, diced

2/3 cup (90g) dried cranberries

½ cup (65g) chopped 70% dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 170°C (335°F) fan-forced.

Whisk eggs and oil together until fluffy. Mix in honey.

Add oats, flour and orange juice, and whisk until combined.

Add apples, cranberries and chocolate, and mix through.

Grease muffin tins with oil, and fill each muffin case three-quarters full with mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the tin and placing them on a cake rack to cool further.

Makes 14

My Secret Ingredient is available as an ebook for $4.99 or paperback for $12.95 Available for purchase here.

thursday recipe: rhubarb and vanilla cakes

We could call these muffins but really what is the difference between muffins and cake anyway? Is it that calling it a muffin tricks us into thinking they are somehow healthier? The ingredients are the same so let's call it as it is, today's recipe is rhubarb and vanilla cakes made with spelt flour. (I'm not using the word cupcake either because I have an aversion to the whole cupcake obsession that hopefully is over, sorry cupcake lovers).

Pete and I have been eating stewed rhubarb most mornings with natural yoghurt as is or with oat and chia porridge. River and Sol can't stand even the thought of eating rhubarb so I made some of these cakes with and some without, either way they are super delicious especially warm with butter.

Rhubarb and Vanilla Cakes - makes 8 in large muffin tray

Ingredients

100 grams butter, melted
2 cups white spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bi carb soda
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 cup milk of choice
2 eggs, whisked
1 tsp ground vanilla
stewed rhubarb

To make

Preheat oven to 180C
In a large mixing bowl put in flour, baking powder, bi carb soda, coconut sugar and stir to combine.
In a small bowl mix eggs and milk.
Pour egg and milk mixture into dry ingredients and add in cooled melted butter and stir to mix ingredients together thoroughly.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin tray.
Make a little well in the top of each muffin and place a tablespoon of rhubarb in the centre, or leave some plain for those who don't like rhubarb.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden and cooked through.

My boys enjoyed the plain vanilla ones warm with butter for an after school snack yesterday, and this morning after a bowl of warm stewed apple + pear with cinnamon and yoghurt River had one toasted! What a way to start the day. Winter is in the air here and we're dreaming of heading north. As regular readers know each year we head north for winter, last year we went to Cape York, this year we are heading to the desert spending time in Alice Springs where Pete will work on Culture is Life.

How about you? Any travel plans this year? Do you escape winter or travel and homeschool your children? I'd love to hear your stories and especially love to know of any blogs you follow of families who do this.

Stay warm. Or cool depending on where you are!

thursday recipe: carrot, poppyseed and orange muffins

I'm doing everything I can at the moment to get more vegetables into Sol (my youngest who is almost five), including putting them into cakes and muffins!

I know that this isn't the ideal way to consume vegetables but these muffins do make for a delicious snack with at least some vegetable goodness.

After I baked this batch I put them in the freezer to add to River and Sol's lunchbox during the week.

River who is not usually a fan of muffins came home from school and asked "Do you have anymore of those things you made with the poppy seeds?" and Sol happily ate his for morning tea too.

Based on this success I thought I'd give carrot and zucchini cake a go. So far that has failed to win fans in the way that these muffins have. Back to the kitchen.

Aside from standing on your head and singing a song about carrots, how are you enticing reluctant veggie eaters in your house?

Carrot, poppyseed and orange muffins

Ingredients

2 cups spelt flour (I used one cup white, one cup wholemeal because that's what I had)
2 teaspoons aluminium free baking powder
1/2 cup coconut or rapadura sugar
1 tbsp poppyseeds
1 cup grated carrot
2 eggs, whisked
1/2 cup oil (almond, macadamia or if you need nut free I have used olive oil. You could use coconut oil but I haven't tried it with that)
3 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
zest of one orange

To make

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl place spelt flour, baking powder, sugar and poppyseeds and stir to combine.
In a separate bowl mix whisked eggs, oil and orange juice.
Add liquids to dry ingredients along with the carrot and orange zest.
Stir to combine.
Spoon mixture into greased muffin tray and cook for 15-20 minutes or until brown and cooked through when tested with a metal skewer inserted into the centre.