Sunshine Muffins
Once cooler temperatures set in and people start sniff, sniff, sniffling I really get the bug to juice. I like to pump my body full of as many nutrients as possible and preparing a big batch of vegetable and fruit juice on Sunday usually lasts me through Wednesday or Thursday. Not too shabby!
I love the beautiful, vibrant jewel tone that fresh, organic produce lends to my juices and lately my favorite concoctions have been a mixture of jammy beets, lime green granny smith apples, broccoli stems, whatever organic kales I can get my hands on from the market, sexy purple carrots, sweet pineapple, bright parsley and a huge hit of spicy ginger. Yeah baby!
Now as much as I love juicing, the downside is that you end up with a substantial portion of that beautiful produce that goes to waste in the pulp. No longer my beauties!! If you can juice on a day that you also have time to throw together a batch of muffins you can now use (some of) that beautiful pulp to bring moisture, nutrition and flavor to a lovely batch of breakfast muffins. Holy, hell. You are going to impress some people with your fresh juice and delightfully tasty, nutrition-laden, homemade muffins.
And when you make these muffins, set a few aside to fully cool, wrap individually and slip into a freezer safe bag. Then pop them in that chilly blaster and on days when you barely have time to brush your teeth snag one, throw it in your bag and in about an hour you will have a gigglicious (yes, I just used a combination of my nickname-Giggles-and the word delicious. You are giggling a little right now, aren’t you?!) breakfast that is much better than anything you would get in a drive through.
*tip! I like to juice in a specific order to get the exact pulp I want for different things. i.e. I juice my greens first and then sometimes throw them in a soup. I then clean out my pulp bin section of my juicer and then move on to the fruit part that I use for baking.
Don’t be turned away by the ingredient list. I bet you have quite a few of these ingredients
in your pantry already!
Sunshine Muffins
Gluten free, Dairy Free
Makes 24 muffins
- 1/3 c. dried cranberries or raisins
- ½ c. almond flour
- ½ c. millet flour
- ½ c. sorghum flour
- ½ c. tapioca starch
- 1 tsp. xanthan gum
- 2 t. baking soda
- 2 t. cinnamon
- ½ t. ground ginger
- ½ t. salt
- 3 c. pulp from juicing, preferably from any combination of apples/carrots/pineapple/beets (alternatively 2 c. shredded carrots + 1 c. shredded apples works if you don’t have pulp from juicing)
- ½ c. unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/3 c. raw sunflower seeds
- 1/3 c. raw pumpkin seeds
- 2 eggs
- 2 T. chia meal (ground chia seeds) mixed with 6 T. hot water
- 2/3 c. sunflower seed oil
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1/2 c. coconut sugar (or organic cane sugar)
- zest from 1 orange
- ¼ c. any non-dairy milk (I like unsweetened vanilla almond/coconut)
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350. Line a muffin tray with muffin papers.
- Pour boiling water over the cranberries or raisins, whichever you are using. Set aside.
- In large bowl mix together the almond flour, millet flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, xanthan gum, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt. Mix well. Add in the pulp, shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and whisk again to blend.
- In a separate bowl mix together the eggs, chia meal-hot water mixture, sunflower seed oil, vanilla extract, orange zest and non-dairy milk. Whisk until well blended. Drain cranberries and add to this mixture.
- Blend together the two bowls until everything has just come together, don’t overmix!
- Scoop into muffin cups, filling pretty much to the top. Bake at 350 for 24-28 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
happy, healthy eating! ~kendra
