Strawberry Muffins
I love baking, it truly is my love language and my favorite creative outlet. When I was a young girl, I was always that friend that made your favorite cookies on your birthday. It’s my best expression of saying “I love you, you mean a lot to me” without actually saying it.
Having gone to pastry school and diving into the masterful world of french patisserie, the passion ignited and I materialized my boundless creative power. Working as a pastry chef felt like true witchcraft, creating beautiful desserts from simple ingredients - butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. However, over time this passion led me to feeling very sick. The ingredients that crafted my favorite desserts were depleting my body of vibrancy. This led me to change my focus and study holistic nutrition and how food affects the body. From this lens, I learned that processed flour and sugar can wreck havoc on the system, which led to the question, “well, how do I bake?”.
This pathway led me on a new creative quest of taking my beloved classic recipes, like a muffin, and sourcing ingredients that fuel the body rather than deplete it. Of course, flavor being of the upmost importance, which birthed creations that are healthy but don’t taste “healthy”.
I feel flow energy when making treats that are crafted with locally sourced seasonal ingredients like ripe strawberries from the farmer’s market. Using natural forms of sugar, like maple syrup, that doesn’t send your blood sugar on a roller coaster, and using alternative forms of flour that don’t wreck your digestive health and microbiome. There is a sense of pride when I give this thoughtful treat to a loved one or client and their expression goes from apprehension to amazement “wow, I had no idea this was gluten-free and that something good for me could taste so good!”.
This is the evolved creative outlet, crafting recipes that are delicious, wholesome, and make your body feel supported from the inside out. My way of saying “I love you”.
strawberries sourced from dirty girl organic farm in santa cruz, ca
1-Bowl Gluten-Free Strawberry Muffins (Vegan)
Undetectably gluten-free and vegan strawberry muffins made with simple ingredients and just 1 bowl! Fluffy, moist, berry-full perfection!
yields: 12 muffins
2 Tbsp flaxseed meal (ground flax seeds // to make flax eggs*)
5 Tbsp water (to make flax eggs)
3/4 cup plain un-sweetened dairy-free milk (I used homemade cashew)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup organic coconut sugar
1/4 cup melted vegan butter (I like Miyoko’s)
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups almond flour
3/4 cup potato starch (NOT potato flour)
1/3 cup brown rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 ¼ cups fresh strawberries (DIVIDED)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a standard muffin tin with paper baking cups. (I like the unbleached, brown paper liners — they don’t stick to the muffins when peeled away).
In a mixing bowl, prepare the flax eggs by combining flaxseed meal and water, and set aside to gel for 5 minutes. Measure out the dairy-free milk, and add the lemon juice to it. Gently stir and set aside to become “buttermilk”
Add the coconut sugar to the flax eggs and use a hand mixer to beat briefly to combine. Then add the melted butter and vanilla and mix again. Add the milk/lemon mixture and mix once more to combine.
Add the almond flour to the liquid ingredients and mix again using the hand mixer, then add all remaining ingredients except the strawberries, and mix one final time. The mixture should be thick yet fluffy. Before adding the strawberries, place a small amount of plain batter in the bottom of each muffin tin (1 Tbsp) and spread it out. This will help prevent the strawberries from sinking to the bottom and making your muffins soggy!
Once all your muffin tins have batter on the bottom, add 1 cup of the strawberries to the remaining batter, setting 1/4 cup of strawberries aside for the tops of the muffins. Gently fold and mix the batter to evenly distribute the strawberries.
Evenly divide the remaining batter between the muffin tins, and then top the muffins with the remaining 1/4 cup of strawberries, pressing them into the top of each muffin so they don’t stick out. Optionally, sprinkle the tops of the muffins with turbinado sugar for a sweet and sparkly topping!
Bake for 28-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, or with very few crumbs, and the tops are lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool in the tin for 5 minutes. Then remove from the tin and let cool completely on a cooling rack. The wrappers peel away more easily and the muffin texture is best when completely cooled.
Once cooled, muffins will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 1-2 days, in the refrigerator for 4-5 days, or in the freezer for 1 month.
