Vegan Mulberry Hazelnut Muffins

As the weather warms up our mulberry tree is groaning with fruit. Well, I say our mulberry bush, but actually it's on our neighbours property. It's SO massive, though, that there is a monster of a tree growing over onto our yard which bears bowlfuls and bowlfuls of gifts every November. Around now every year we start having mulberry everything - mulberry smoothies, daiquiris, mulberry crumble, mulberry pie, mulberry jam and, of course, fresh juicy mulberries by the handful. 

With the mulberries being plentiful, it seemed natural to introduce them to my next batch of muffins. I love making muffins! I especially have fallen in love with hazelnut muffins - using hazelnut meal and hazelnut butter (for an even more hazelnut-y muffin check out my Quadruple Hazelnut & Date Muffins). The mulberries were sensational in these muffins, and you should seize the opportunity during this brief period that mulberries are available in most fruit and vegie stores. If you don't have mulberries, the best substitute would be blackberries. Failing that, go with blueberries or raspberries. 

If you're one of my Northern Hemisphere readers, then mulberries are most definitely not available for you! I recommend bookmarking this recipe for next spring and in the meantime cracking out the frozen berries and pretending you basking in the warm spring sunshine, as you bask in the warm autumn sunshine.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 cup hazelnut meal

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup rice milk (or soy)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup hazelnut butter

1 cup fresh muesli

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180 degrees C.

2. Put the flour, hazelnut meal, sugar, bicarb and baking powder in a bowl and mix well to combine.

3. Make a well in the centre and pour in the rice milk, canola oil, vanilla and hazelnut butter and mix well.

4. Trim the stems off the mulberries and wash them. You can chop them up a bit but I like to leave them whole so you get a big juice bit of mulberry.

5. Either grease a muffin tray well or cheat a bit and use cupcake liners (which I did - it's just easier!). Fill the tray/liners almost to the top and then bake for 23 mins. 

6. Remove from the oven when they are golden on top and transfer to a cooling rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

Want more tasty muffins?

Orange Almond Choc Chip Muffins

Blueberry Oat Bran Muffins (plus variations) 

Quadruple Hazelnut Date Muffins

Orange, Almond and Chocolate Chip Breakfast Muffins

You may know from this blog that I don't have a great relationship with breakfast. Why? Read here for that. These muffins, however, I have no problem having a relationship with. I'm possibly a little bit too into these actually, these muffins probably want me to give them a bit of personal space. They probably want to break up with me for being a little bit too clingy.

The choc chips are optional - it depends on whether or not you mind eating one or two choc chips for breakfast :)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 cup almond meal

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Zest of 1 orange (hint: zest orange before you juice it!)

1 cup fresh orange juice (about 1 orange, if 1 orange doesn't give you quite enough just top it up with a bit of water)

1/3 cup apple sauce

2 tbsp canola or rice bran oil

1/2 cup roughly chopped almonds

1/2 cup chocolate chips

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180 degrees C.

2. Put the flour, almond meal, sugar, bicarb, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix well to combine and remove lumps (a whisk or a fork work well for this).

3. Make a well in the centre and pour in the orange juice. Mix well to combine. Add the apple sauce, canola oil and orange zest and mix well.

4. Just before cooking stir through the chocolate chips and chopped almonds.

5. Either grease a muffin tray well or cheat a bit and use cupcake liners (which I did - it's just easier!!). Fill the tray/liners to the top and then bake for 22-23 mins. 

6. Remove from the oven when they are golden on top and transfer to a cooling rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

For more great vegan breakfast ideas that are worth getting up for check out:

Vegan Blueberry Oatbran Muffins (plus variations!)

Rainbow Banana Pancakes with Bourbon Syrup

Peach, Date and Walnut Bircher Muesli

Quadruple Hazelnut and Date Breakfast Muffins

Cherry and Almond Bircher Muesli

Quadruple Hazelnut and Date Breakfast Muffins

Remember this Peach and Date Bircher Muesli post I did at the start of the month? You probably don't - so I'll recap! I admitted that I am terrible at eating breakfast in the mornings and vowed to change that! I also said I'd be posting lots of interesting new breakfast ideas. Well, I've kept half of that deal! I have been much better at eating breakfast this month and have only had 1 or 2 days this month when I have skipped breakfast, which is a big improvement. However, I haven't posted any more breakfast recipes since then - so I'm rectifying that now!

I've had fun making interesting breakfasts for myself - including a couple of different types of bircher muesli and my own vegan lemon curd (which is great on crumpets!). But I think the best idea for breakfasts is really - breakfast muffins. You can have one day a week where you make up a batch and then you are set for breakfasts for the whole week. Just get up and grab a muffin - no effort required! Muffins also make great healthy day time snacks.

These hazelnut muffins look plain and unassuming but their texture and taste are just amazing! If you are crazy about hazelnuts I recommend using hazelnut milk instead of soy milk and adding half a cup of chopped hazelnuts in - then it will be four levels of hazelnut in the one amazing muffin!

If you want more ideas for breakfast muffins check out my Blueberry Oat Bran Muffins and my Orange, Almond and Choc Chip Muffins!

On another note - I've been nominated for the Best Australian Blogs 2012 People's Choice Award - you can vote for me by hitting up this link: http://www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/bloggingcomp/peopleschoice.html

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 cup hazelnut meal

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup hazelnut milk (or soy if you don't have it)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup hazelnut butter

½ cup dried dates, chopped in half

NB: If you are crazy about hazelnuts then you could also add some chopped hazelnuts to this.

To Make:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180 degrees C.

2. Put the flour, hazelnut meal, sugar, bicarb, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix well to combine and remove lumps (a whisk or a fork work well for this).

3. Make a well in the centre and pour in the hazelnut milk, canola oil, vanilla and hazelnut butter and mix well.

4. Stir through the chopped dates.

5. Either grease a muffin tray well or cheat a bit and use cupcake liners (which I did - it's just easier!!). Fill the tray/liners to the top and then bake for 23-25 mins. 

6. Remove from the oven when they are golden on top and transfer to a cooling rack.

Makes 10 muffins.