While visiting London this past November, a couple of colleagues and I quickly developed a morning ritual of meeting at the Starbucks on Berkeley Street before heading in to the office.
Since Starbucks doesn’t offer any gluten-free baked goods; and even if they did, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to pass up a homemade treat for processed gunk, I ended up packing a coconut muffin top in my purse so I could join in the ritual.
I sat with the group; Venti Calm Tea in hand, as they snacked on their scones, yogurt, and lattes. It made my morning.
During one of our visits Lea; my boss, decided to order a rise and shine muffin – a breakfast muffin packed with apple, raisins, carrot, pineapple, cranberries, sunflower seeds and pecan pieces. “A source of fibre” the little poster in the window claimed.
It looked
good
, making my sad little muffin top quite insignificant.
When I got back to my hotel room over 16 hours later, I still had that golden muffin on my mind – a surefire sign that I had to recreate it when I got back to Canada.
Then, I completely forgot about the recipe for a solid 3 months.
When planning the recreation a couple of weeks ago, I did a bit of research to figure out what I was up against. A good place to start was the nutrition facts from Starbucks:
- 448 calories – I little heavy for a breakfast muffin. To cut this down, I opted for less oil than usual, reducing the 18g of fat from the original as well.
- 6g protein – a perfect amount that I worked hard at maintaining in my recreated version.
- 31g sugar – I’d be a wreck if I had this much sugar in the morning. ZING! Instead of relying on refined sugar, I opted for sweetening with just a touch of maple syrup and dried fruit.
- 2.8g fiber – to keep this, I added flax seed instead of the oat bran and other glutenous ingredients used by Starbucks.
I wrote down the ingredients that I thought would yield a similar healthier, gluten-free alternative and got to work!
The result?
The best muffin I’ve ever made.
Seriously. I know I say that a lot, but I really mean it EVERY time.
… and if you don’t believe me, my neighbor; Shawna, said it was too.
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 2 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoon coconut milk
- 3 tablespoon maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ cup coconut flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup shredded carrots, drained
- ½ banana, chopped into rough chunks
- 2 tablespoon unsweetened raisins or dried currants
- 2 medjool dates, pitted and finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds, chopped
- ½ teaspoon whole flax seed
- Preheat oven to 400F and line 6 muffin cups with paper liners. Set aside
- Combine all dry ingredients in a small bowl.
- Combine all wet ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
- Add dry to wet and stir until incorporated.
- Add in shredded carrots, banana, raisins, and dates. Stir until just mixed.
- Drop mixture into prepared muffin liners and top with the mixture of seeds.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Mine took exactly 17 minutes.
View Nutritional Information (once on page scroll down)
Is it wrong that I’m planning to make a batch of these to take with me to India? They’ll stay good for a couple of days, I’m sure of it.
