Cocoa Oatmeal Muffins

A baking post to mix it up.

Looking for a way to use up some pantry ingredients, I found this recipe online & veganised it.

Cocoa Oatmeal Muffins

• 1 1/4 cups plain flour (I used half wholemeal, half normal)
  
• 1 cup caster sugar (you could use half applesauce, half sugar, or another natural sweetener like agave syrup)
  
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
  
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  
• 1 TBS baking powder
  
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 2 egg replacers (I used Orgran)
  
• 1 cup soy milk
  
• 1/2 cup Nuttelex, melted
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
  
• 1 cup nuts, chopped finely (I used walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 170C & grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Stir together flour, sugar, oats, cocoa, baking powder and salt in large bowl.

Beat egg replacer, soy milk, Nuttelex and vanilla together in a small bowl. Add wet mixture and nuts to the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the tin bake 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

I've lost the photo of these muffins so you'll just have to take my word for it - they're awesome. Chocolatey, wholesome (if you use wholemeal flour & natural sweeteners) & no-fail so far. Also a real crowd pleaser - I took multiple batches of these to work & they always got eaten on the same day.

Mega post of pre-Christmas baking

Rather than spam you with individual posts, here's one big catch-up post of everything I made in the lead-up to Christmas.

This is Potato Wedges - I just cut up the potatoes, put them in a baking pan with a slurp of olive oil, then sprinkle some salt/pepper/rosemary over the top. Then I bake them at about 190C for 30-40min - delicious!The cauliflower is Lisa's Roasted Cauliflower. This didn't turn out so well for me - but I didn't follow the recipe properly so it's definitely my fault :-). I didn't have any onion & I used a little too much sesame oil & rosemary so the flavours were all out.

Here are some gingerbread men I made from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I made them to take to a pre-Christmas afternoon tea but they were barely edible so didn't make it out of my kitchen :-(This is the first thing I have made from my favourite cookbook that didn't turn out. I think it was the molasses - the recipe called for 2/3 cup, and I used blackstrap molasses. I should definitely have used a lighter molasses or less of the blackstrap because the flavour was so overwhelming I had to bury them in icing to make them edible.

Because my gingerbread men didn't work out, I made these lovely Orange & Blueberry Muffins instead, also from The Joy of Vegan Baking.These were perfect - more like a cupcake than a muffin & the orange & blueberry were just perfect together. The recipe is for Lemon & Blueberry, but I only had an orange on hand & citrus is easy to substitute, so I wasn't disappointed.

This dish is Creamy Mushroom Pasta (see recipe below). I don't make it often, but I really do like it. The sherry is the secret I think - it really lifts the flavour of the mushrooms.
Creamy Mushroom Pasta

• 500g pasta (I used wholemeal penne)
  
• 2 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
  
• 1 large onion, chopped
  
• 1 tsp dry basil
  
• 1 tsp dry oregano
  
• 1 tsp dry thyme
  
• 3/4 cup cooking sherry
  
• 2 TBS soy cream cheese (I use tofutti)
  
• 1 cup soy milk
  
• 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Cook pasta until tender. Saute onions in a little oil over medium heat for 5mins, until translucent. Add mushrooms & stir until heated through. Add herbs & season to taste.

When mushrooms are cooked, add sherry & mix in cream cheese. Let reduce a little & add milk. Add garlic & continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until thickened.

Serve over the pasta.

Nearly at the end now - this is a salad I threw together one night after a tiring day at work. I was in a hurry so served it slightly warm, but it would be equally good cold.First, I sliced a zucchini thinly, placed the slices in a baking pan, sprinkled olive oil over the top & baked it for about 15mins. Then I sliced 1 bunch of asparagus & blanched it in boiling water for about 1min. Then I tossed the asparagus & zucchini together in a bowl with baby spinach, 1 diced tomato & 1 can of chickpeas. I poured a little more olive oil over the top & added salt & pepper. It was really good, which is always a relief when I'm making up recipes as I go - I haven't had much success with this in the past.

Last but not least, here are some Felafel Burgers from my other favourite cookbook - The Vegan Table.The recipe suggests baking or sauteing these in a frypan. I chose the baking method but they turned out a little dry. Still yummy in a wrap though - I think we had these with hummus, tomato & spinach.

Jam & Oats make a muffin

Here's another recipe from my favourite cookbook author Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. These are the Jam-Filled Oat Bran Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.Following the theme of everything else in the book the recipe is quite easy. The muffins are filled with oat bran, oat milk, walnuts, cinnamon & strawberry jam - which sounded like a winning combination to me. The oat milk was optional, but I'm glad I used it - I think it gave a nice rich flavour to the finished product.As you can see from the photo above, I probably wasn't careful enough when dropping my jam into the batter, because it mostly ended up seeping out the sides of the muffins, making them stick to the pan.

That also meant that when cut open, my muffins didn't look nearly as pretty as Colleens did.They did taste pretty damn good though. The only downfall for these muffins was that they didn't hold up too well the next day. They lost the nice crumbly texture & quickly became quite moist & dense. So just make sure you have some friends around to help you polish them off on the day you make them :-)