Apricot & Apple Muffins

Welcome back! For a lot of us, it’s back to school this morning and that means the usual stress of filling lunchboxes.

At Fruitful Day, we’re all about finding ways to make healthy delicious AND convenient. Besides delivering you boxes of the most delicious fresh fruit, we also share lots of healthy recipes with you crafted by our resident nutritionist, Michelle. If you haven’t heard of Michelle before, you can read more about her here.

Today’s recipe is VEGAN apricot and apple muffins. Generally, eggs are used for binding and structural support in a recipe as well as adding moisture and richness, however, there are several ways you can replace eggs to make a recipe vegan:

To replace one egg:

  1. Flax – Add 1 tbsp of ground flax to 3 tbsp hot water and combine to form a gel.
  2. Chia – Add 1 tbsp of ground chia to 3 tbsp hot water and combine to form a gel.
  3. ¼ cup applesauce – peel, core and quarter apples. Bake them for 15 – 20 minutes at 180 degrees C or until very soft. Place in a blender while still hot and puree into applesauce.
  4. ¼ cup mashed banana.

However, the replacement you choose will depend on what you’re making!

  • Flax and chia are better when you need strong binding agents
  • Applesauce, on the other hand, adds a lot of moisture and flavor to a recipe – perfect for something like muffins!

With that, we wish you a wonderful start to the week and happy baking!

Apricot & Apple Muffins (makes 10 – 12 muffins)

1 hour

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups of oat flour
  • ¼ cup flax meal
  • 2 tbsp coconut flour
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp clove, allspice and nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
  • 2 tbsp chopped dried apricots from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ¾ cup of applesauce made with apples from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ½ cup maple syrup/honey
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp vanilla powder

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius
  2. In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients; oat flour, flax meal, coconut flour, baking powder, cinnamon, spices, vanilla powder and chopped dried apricots.
  3. Blend applesauce with maple syrup, apple cider vinegar and fresh ginger.
  4. Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and pour into a silicon muffin tray or into a lined muffin tray.
  5. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean.
  6. Allow to cool and then serve with coconut yoghurt, cream cheese or butter.

*Note on ingredients – you don’t need to buy oat flour or flax meal. You can buy oats and flax seeds, then put them in a blender to grind into a flour consistency.

Paleo Toffee Apples

Our last recipe for today is one the kids are sure to love, toffee apples! This is a great one to get the kids involved in making together and we’re sure the whole family will enjoy.  

Whereas traditional toffee is made with a lot of sugar and often with other unnatural flavoring agents, this recipe idea is a very simple alternative that tastes the same and can serve as a post dinner festive snack! When you’re shopping for the ingredients make sure to buy good quality honey and coconut cream with only ‘coconut kernel’ and ‘water’ on the label. Most coconut creams will contain thickeners and stabilizers such as guar gum, which you want to avoid. 

We hope you and your family have a wonderful time over the festive period! We’d love to hear from you if you’ve enjoyed our special edition holiday recipes.  Drop us a line anytime on [email protected] even if it’s just to say ‘hi’!

Paleo Toffee Apples 

 

1 – 1.5 hours

Ingredients

  • 3 apples from the Fruitful Day Box
  • 1 cup of coconut milk
  • 1 cup of honey
  • 1 pinch of salt

METHOD

  1. Place coconut cream, honey and salt into a heavy bottom saucepan on medium heat.
  2. Bring to a simmer. Once bubbles start forming you can stir to keep from bubbling over. This should take 20 – 30 minutes.
  3. Continue to simmer until the temperature reaches 120 degrees C on a candy thermometer.
  4. While the honey and coconut cream are simmering, poke your sticks into the apples – you can use popsicle sticks or actual sticks from a tree.
  5. Line a baking tray with baking paper for the apples to rest on.
  6. Once 120 degrees C is reached, remove from the heat and allow to cool to around 80 degrees C, which will be a good temperature for dipping.
  7. Dip the apples one by one into the toffee and then place them on their sides on the baking tray. You can also add nuts or desiccated coconut to the toffee at this point.
  8. Allow to set in the fridge for several hours. Some of the toffee will drip off which you can either discard or mould with your hands back onto the apple.

Granola & Apple Compote Jars

It’s been a while since we posted a recipe on our blog, but we’re back!  This time with a delicious home made granola recipe, which is much better than any store bought granola that often contains added sugar, palm oil and non-gluten free grains. Once the granola is pre-prepared, it is very quick breakfast you can put in a jar and take with you to work or as a post-workout snack.  In our jars, we’ve paired the homemade granola with apple compote and yoghurt, but you can get creative with just about any fruit! This time of year pears are some of our favorites, for instance.

We have some more exciting recipes coming up in the next weeks so keep checking back!

Granola & Apple Compote Jars 

1 hour

INGREDIENTS for the apple compote

  • 4 apples from the Fruitful Day Box
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil

INGREDIENTS for the granola 

  • ½ cup fresh shredded coconut OR dried desiccated
  • ½ cup oats
  • ½ cup walnuts from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ½ cup hazelnuts from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ½ cup peanuts from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ½ cup pumpkin seeds from the Fruitful Day Box  ½ cup sunflower seeds from the Fruitful Day Box
  • 4 tbsp honey OR maple syrup
  • 4 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ginger powder
  • ½ cup cranberries from the Fruitful Day Box
  • ½ cup raisins from the Fruitful Day Box

METHOD for the apple compote

  1. Preheat over to 180 degrees C.
  2. Peel apples and chop into quarters.
  3. Place on a baking tray, sprinkle with cinnamon and coconut oil and mix around with your hands.
  4. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until soft.
  5. Remove from the oven. You can either eat the apples as they are or put in a food processor for a more compote like consistency. Alternatively, you can cut them into smaller pieces at the beginning before roasting for a chunky compote.
  6. To serve, layer the granola, compote and yoghurt into a jar in any order.

Dehydrated Apples with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt

Football fever is everywhere and there’s definitely some competition in our office! How about yours?

As much fun as 3 football games a day are, it also inevitably means A LOT of snacking. That’s why we thought that for today’s recipe we would encourage you to stay on your top game with a great healthy snack alternative that is both sweet and savory.

Roll on dehydrated apples with dark chocolate and sea salt! They’re as easy to grab and snack on as chips, but without all the nasties added. Now back to football… we all know Germany is going to win, right?! Only comment if you agree… we’re kidding mostly! Continue reading Dehydrated Apples with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt