Monday, February 29, 2016

Tara's Sunshine Blender Muffins

My friend Tara makes these easy blender muffins from one of her favourite cookbooks, The Best of Bridge. These orange-flavoured muffins are so flavourful and moist that it was shocking to find out that they can be made in the blender in about 2 minutes!

Tara says their recipes never fail her---even when she adapts the recipes and makes them even better by using whole grain flours. 

I was so anxious to make them when she sent the recipe that I began throwing things in the blender before realizing I was out of eggs! I ended up subbing chia seeds and a little extra water in the blender and they turned out great---so easy to make vegan if desired. 

One blender, a muffin tin and that's it. So very easy! Yes, the blender gets a bit messy but afterwards fill it halfway up with warm water and a tiny drop of dishsoap and blend away on high power until its clean.

I'm confident this will be my new go-to recipe for muffins! Thanks Tara!


Tara's Sunshine Blender Muffins
Easy 
I prefer to use organic oranges when using the peel in recipes. In this recipe you use the whole orange! Tara uses whole wheat flour and I made it with spelt. You can use all-purpose flour if desired. If you don't have a high-powered blender, just blend first ingredients with hand blender or regular blender, before adding to dry ingredients in a bowl. 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Puree in blender until smooth:

1 whole orange, cut into 1/8ths, preferrably organic
1/2 cup orange juice
1 egg (or 1 tbsp chia seeds and 3 tbsp water)
1/4 cup neutral oil (grapeseed, avocado, etc.)

3. Add and blend:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

4. Add and quickly blend (should still have pieces visible):

1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries or other dried berries

5. Scoop into 12 muffin cups and bake for 18-20 mins, or until toothpick inserted into a centre muffin comes out clean.