Tag: vegan

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.

Banana Baked Oats

It’s a new week and for many of us the last before our kids are on holiday for a couple weeks. This quote by John F. Kennedy is our motto for the week, “Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.” With a to do list a mile long, it’s important to take time out to plan and figure out what is actually moving you towards your goals. Once you’ve got down on paper, it will be a lot easier to spend your time on productive tasks. 

On the list of things we don’t want you to worry about is your breakfast! This simple and delicious recipe for banana baked oats is a great way to get you powered up for the day.  By baking the oats, you create a different texture than the one you may be used to, almost like a soft chewy cereal bar! By adding flax, chia and nuts, the nutritional value of this breakfast is also greatly increased. Lastly, add any fruits from the Fruitful Day box to make it both aesthetically pleasing and more flavorsome.  Add different fruits the next day for a whole new combo and you won’t get bored.  

Now go out there and smash this week healthy breakfast and all! 

Banana Baked Oats (makes one 23cm x 23cm baked tray)

1 hour

Ingredients for the baked oats

  • 2 cups of rolled oats
  • 2 tbsp ground flax
  • 3 tbsp chia
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp nutmeg
  • ¼ tsp cloves
  • ½ tsp ginger powder
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 2 cups mashed banana from the Fruitful Day Box
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup or honey (this is optional as bananas are already sweet)
  • 2 cups coconut milk, almond milk or any milk of choice

Ingredients for toppings

  • 1 banana from the Fruitful Day Box
  • any other fruit of choice from the Fruitful Day Box
  • pecan nuts from the Fruitful Day Box

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. In a large bowl, combine the oats, flax, chia, spices and salt. You can grind the flax yourself from whole flax seeds in a coffee grinder.

3. Add the wet ingredients; mashed banana, coconut oil, vanilla essence, maple syrup and coconut/nut milk.

4. Mix all ingredients until well combined.

5. Pour mixture into the baking tray (lined if necessary) and bake for 30 – 35 minutes or until browned on top.

6. While oats are baking, take another baking tray out for the pecans.

7. Coat the pecans in honey and roast for 5 – 8 minutes or until browned. You can put them in alongside the oats.

8. While both the pecans and oats are baking, thinly slice bananas.

9. Place a pan on medium heat, add some butter to the pan and sauté the banana slices by cooking lightly on each side and sprinkling with cinnamon.

10. Once oats are browned, remove from the oven and serve with cream or yoghurt. Top with caramelised banana, caramelised pecans and sliced fruit.

Nut Butter Cups

It’s the weekend so little indulgences are definitely allowed.  Afterall, life is about balance.

Today’s recipe is for homemade nut butter cups. Step aside Reese’s peanut butter cups, we have a healthier version for you! By making it yourself, it will leave you more satiated as you can add in healthy fats such as coconut oil and peanut butter.  Instead of 5 nut butter cups, you’ll only feel the need to grab 1 of these babies!

This recipe is quite easy to make and if you’e short on time you can even buy pre-bought nut butter to cut the time down to 15-20 minutes.

If you want to make it vegan, simple replace the honey with maple syrup.

We hope you’re enjoying our week of recipes. As always, we’re here to make a healthy lifestyle easier and more accessible to all.

Nut Butter Cups (makes 12 nut butter cups) 

Nut Butter Cups

1 hour (including setting time)  

INGREDIENTS for the nut butter 

  • 1 cup mixed nuts from the Fruitful Day Box.
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil

INGREDIENTS for the chocolate 

  • ½ cup coconut oil
  • 3 tbsp cacao butter
  • ¾ cup raw cacao powder
  • ¼ cup honey / maple syrup (or less if you prefer it to be less sweet)
  • ¼ tsp salt

Nut Butter Cups

METHOD for the nut butter

  1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
  2. Place nuts on a baking tray and roast for 6 – 8 minutes or until browned.
  3. While still hot, place nuts in a high speed blender with the coconut oil and salt. Depending on how powerful your blender is, you may need to add coconut oil to help the blades spin.
  4. Place in the fridge to harden while you make the chocolate.

METHOD for the chocolate

  1. Place the coconut oil and cacao butter in a bain-maire (a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water) and stir until melted.
  2. Add honey/maple syrup and stir.
  3. Remove from the heat and add cacao powder and salt. Stir until combined.
  4. Line a cupcake or muffin tray with paper baking cups.
  5. Pour approximately 2 tbsp of chocolate mixture into the base of the paper baking cup and place in the fridge to set. This should take 10 – 15 minutes.
  6. Once set, spoon 1 – 2 tsp nut butter on the set chocolate base. If the nut butter is too runny it will run to the edges rather than sitting in the centre.
  7. Pour the melted chocolate mixture over the peanut butter until it’s totally covered.
  8. Return to the fridge to set. This should take 15 – 20 minutes. Once set, the paper should peel off very easily.