Carrot and Courgette (Zucchini) Muffins

Its World Vegan Month in November.  Why not try these wee vegan cakes? No-one will believe that they are egg and dairy free!

Yum

We've had a huge amount of courgettes (we use the term courgette in the UK instead of zucchini) growing in our garden this year which has left me searching for new recipes to use them up. My favourites have been this lovely recipe from Alexx Stuart for Roast Zucchini and Basil Rosettes. And these amazing wee carrot and courgette muffins. The kids prefer the cakes! I've adapted Chloe Coscarelli's recipe for Maple Glazed Carrot Cupcakes from Chloe's Vegan Desserts, so they work beautifully as just carrot cupcakes (use 2 cups of grated carrots).

I've also made these as gluten free versions, and they work really well.  You may want to add a tiny bit more orange juice to make them as moist, as gluten free flour tends to absorb a little more liquid.

I make a batch of these every few weeks as they are so quick and moreish!

Carrot and Courgette (Zucchini) Muffins
(Egg free, dairy free, vegan and can be gluten free)

Ingredients


1 cup sultanas
1 cup fresh orange juice
2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice
1 cup peeled grated carrot
1 cup grated courgette (peel if old but if young leave on the skin)
1/2 cup oil
1 tablespoon cider apple vinegar


Method

Makes 18

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4.

1. Measure out the orange juice and sultanas using the easy read measuring cups.  Place both in a small batter bowl to allow the sultanas to soak up some of the orange and become nice and plump and juicy.

2.  In a Classic batter bowl, add the plain flour and sugar. Then measure out the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and mixed spice using the adjustable measuring spoons and add to the classic batter bowl.  Use a stainless whisk to mix them together well and aerate the flour.

3. Peel and grate the carrot and courgette using a microplane course grater and add to the wet ingredients in the small batter bowl.

4. Measure out the oil and cider apple vinegar and add to the wet ingredients.  Stir with a mix n scraper.

5.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry in the classic batter bowl and mix with the mix n scraper until everything is combined.

6. Use the large scoop to measure out the mixture evenly into 18 cupcake wrappers in a stoneware 12 cup muffin pan or muffin pan.

7. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown on top.

8. Cool on a stackable cooling rack. Then watch them disappear in super quick time.

If you want to ice them a basic "butter" icing made with Pure spread and icing sugar and a few drops of lemon juice.  It tastes amazingly like cream cheese icing when added to the cakes.

Apple Crumble cupcakes (Gluten free, egg free, dairy free, nut free, soya free and vegan!)

These cupcakes were created as an entry for a Pampered Chef competition for their consultants. The challenge was to make a cupcake that could be cooked for Party Hour which is a super quick show and allows guests and host to enjoy a Pampered Chef show even if they are pushed for time.  I went for an allergy free cupcake as I feel that the recipe should be available to as many people as possible, and just because you have an allergy doesn't mean you shouldn't have a cupcake!

Don't be put off by the list of ingredients. It may seem a lot but it is just a bit of repetition in the crumble topping, and dairy free, egg free cooking needs a bit of extra oomph sometimes!

 Crumble Topping

¾ cup Gluten free self raising flour

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup vegan margarine, melted

Cupcakes

1 ½ cups Gluten free self raising flour

½ cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

½ cup rice milk

½ cup vegetable oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 apples

100g Jar Apple Sauce, divided into 2 tbsp and 12 tsp

Icing

4 tbsp icing sugar

1 tbsp water

Ready rolled white icing

1.   Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Place cupcake cases in the 12-cup Muffin Pan.  Into the 2L Stainless Mixing Bowl, measure out the Crumble topping ingredients using an Easy Read Measuring Cup and the Adjustable Measuring Spoon teaspoon.  Mix together with two forks until the topping is crumbly and has small lumps in it. Set aside.

2.   Into the 4L Stainless Mixing Bowl measure out the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a Small Batter Bowl whisk together the milk, oil, vinegar, 2 tbsp apple sauce, and vanilla using a Stainless Whisk, until frothy.

3.   Wedge the apples with the Apple Wedger and then chop into fine chunks with a FoodChopper. Add to the flour mix.

4.   Pour the wet mix into the dry flour mixture and mix until just together with a Mix N Scraper.  Quickly Scoop into the paper cases using a Large Scoop.

Sprinkle the crumble topping over the cupcakes and press down slightly to make it stick.  Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. 

5.   Meanwhile prepare the icing by mixing the icing and water together and scooping into a Decorator Bottle with the round nozzle attached.  Use the apple cutter from the Creative Cutter Set stamp out 12 apple shapes from the ready rolled icing.

6.   Remove cupcakes from the oven and leave to sit for a few minutes before removing from the stone.

7.   Carefully remove the cupcakes from the stone (see chef’s tip) and place on Stackable Cooling Rack.  While the cupcakes are still warm you can drizzle icing over in random patterns, add a teaspoon of apple sauce to the top of each one and place an apple shape on the top.

Chef’s Tip: Use a micro scraper to ease the cupcakes out of the wells without spilling too much crumble topping everywhere.

If you don't want to top with the apple shape then simply add the drizzled icing and stop there.

My big cake secret! (dairy free, egg free and vegan cake)

This is my big secret!  Don't tell anyone will you?  I have a basic sponge recipe that is egg free, dairy free and is so simple its ridiculous!  And it doesn't contain any odd egg replacers, which I have a real aversion to.

Plain sponge with choc chips added

Ingredients
90g     Sugar
90g     Dairy free spread (I use Pure Spread)
180g   Self Raising Flour
160ml Soya milk (or other non dairy milk)

Thats it!!

Method

You can use a mixer for this but I don't have one at the moment so its all by hand here! (Good for my right arm though.)


Preheat the oven to 180°C

1. Measure the sugar and Pure spread into a classic batter bowl and mix with a bamboo spoon until nicely fluffy.

2. Add the flour and milk and mix until combined well and looking like a normal cake batter.  If its too solid add a little more soya milk.

3.  Spoon into 12 cupcake liners or leave your stoneware muffin pan naked and bake in the oven for about 12-15 mins till golden brown. (You could use the deluxe mini-muffin pan and make 24 small ones!)

4. Remove to a stackable cooling rack and cool completely before icing.

Tip:  Fancy blueberry muffins or raspberry muffins, or any other fruit for that matter?

Then bung in a good handful of fruit once the cake batter is mixed, stir them through and bake as above - YUM!  I quite often use frozen fruit - chuck them into the batter while still frozen and just increase the cooking time by a couple more minutes.

Or what about choc chip?  Chop up about 80g vegan chocolate into chunks and chuck it in.



Basic cupcakes with added British Flags by my six year old daughter for @sundaybakeclub on twitter

I've also used this to make large birthday cakes such as the Princess castle below!  Just use the above recipe in a 20cm cake tin for each layer, and bake for about 22 minutes. I added muffins and ice cream cones to this one to make the shapes.

Bread Rolls in the Stoneware Muffin Pan

I've just looked at the blog and realised there is nothing on here that is savoury!  That should give you an idea about my leanings shouldn't it? 

So we are going to rectify that with BREAD WEEK!
 
To start off with, here are some lovely bread rolls done in the stoneware 12 cup muffin pan. 

These would work on any stone if you just shape them into rolls, and makes a lovely crusty loaf if divided in two and shaped to fit the medium bar pan or bakers.  I promise to post a recipe soon for Stoneware bread for the best sized loaf for a loaf pan!

Ingredients

600g White Bread Flour

1 1/2 tsp fast action yeast

2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsp olive oil
380ml warm water

Method
1. Put the flour in a classic batter bowl. Add salt, sugar, yeast and stir. 

2. Add the oil and then the water gradually to make a soft dough.

3. Knead well on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic (or bung it in a mixer with a dough hook if you have one!)

4. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with lightly oiled cling film (or put on the lid) for 45 mins or until double the size.

5. Heat the oven to 200°C.

6. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, knead for a minute and then divide into twelve even sized pieces.

7. Grease the sides of the stoneware muffin pan lightly with oil and put a piece of dough in each one.  You can try making tear apart rolls which are three or four small pieces of dough put in the one cup together.  They make a nice little pattern on top of the rolls (see my picture with an example of one of each on the left) and they can be torn apart easily and dipped in oils or buttered.

8. Leave to rise for as long as you can bear up to 30 mins - I usually manage about 15 mins while my oven heats up!

9. Bake for about 20-25 mins till golden brown and they make a hollow sound when tapped on top.

10. Leave to cool in the muffin pan for about 5 mins then remove to cooling rack.

11. Eat warm, plain, smothered in butter, dipped in garlic butter or olive oil and balsamic or anything else you fancy! YUM!

Please be careful as the stoneware retains a lot of heat and can still burn after the 5 mins cooling time.  Use oven gloves!