I haven’t baked in a while, but as I have the house to myself this weekend, I thought I’d make the most of it! So, I scoured my cupboards and made these easy vegan orange muffins.

After scouring through my baking recipe books, I returned to an old favourite, Chloe’s Vegan Desserts. I have made tonnes of vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli’s recipes and have yet to come across one that hasn’t been amazing. This time, I went for the Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins.

There were just two teensy problems: one, I didn’t have lemons, and two, I didn’t have poppy seeds… So I decided to sub the lemons for oranges and see how it turned out. I actually ended up changing the recipe a fair amount due to what I had in my pantry, so here’s my adaptation:

Vegan Orange Muffins

Adapted from Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, Chloe’s Vegan Desserts
Makes 14 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons orange zest
1 tablespoon pure lemon extract

Method

Pre-heat oven to 180°C fan-forced. Line a 12-cup muffin tray with muffin cases.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, bi-carb soda and salt. In a separate, medium bowl whisk together milk, apple sauce, orange juice, orange zest and lemon extract.

Form a well in the dry mix and pour in wet mix. Whisk until just combined, making sure that you do not over-mix.

Spoon mix into muffin cases to about 2/3 full. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden and cake skewer inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack until completely cooled.

Enjoy!