These lunchbox friendly, super nutrient dense apple cinnamon muffins were born through my popular coconut cupcake recipe. I wanted to keep the same principle but add more fibre, omega 3s and protein so that it was a super sustaining lunch box item for my son – so I did a little play around and this variation was born.
They are grain, gluten, nut and dairy free. They are very low in natural sugars. AND they still taste like a delicious treat – Important, don’t you think? AND you don’t need to even break out the whisk or mixer, although you can chuck it all into the Thermomix or MyCook for a quick mix for a few seconds rather than using the bowls, if you prefer.
To vary you can add a few frozen blueberries or raspberries in the mix (like 3-4 blobbed into each individual one once spooned into the tins, and voila! An apple berry transformation, just like that!
Do let me know how you enjoy them. It’s a delicious project to involve the little people too!
Feel free to post a pic to instagram and tag me @lowtoxlife and if you love the recipe – I LOVE comments here on the blog to help inspire others to see how easy cooking yummy things is! Big thanks.
Real Treats. Happy Bodies.
Gluten, Nut and Dairy Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
Hand mixing in a bowl method… Dry bowl ingredients in one bowl
- 40 g coconut flour (for full grain free, ie ‘no buckwheat’ or tapioca flour below, do 80g / 1/2 cup coconut flour and increase to 3 eggs, not 2)
- 90 g tapioca flour or buckwheat flour (you can grind down buckwheat kernels into a powder to make buckwheat flour)
- 30 g flaxmeal (you can buy preground or grind flax seeds fresh for best result. Speed 7, 8 seconds, or on high in a regular food processor)
- 1 tsp aluminium free baking powder
- 2/3 tsp bi carb soda
- 1 tsp vanilla bean powder (if you don’t have, just do 2 teaspoons vanilla bean extract in the wet ingredient bowl)
- 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon*
- 40 g desiccated coconut
Wet bowl ingredients in a second bowl
- 2 eggs broken up with a fork first in the bowl (if you have egg allergy to cater for, you can replace the egg with 50ml extra of coconut milk. It will be a little less stable in texture if you wanted to make a cake, but still perfect for cupcakes)
- EGG FREE OPTION FROM HANNAH who’s made them already: I just add 3 tbsp of water to 1t of flaxmeal to replace one egg usually – stir it and let it sit for a couple of minutes. It goes all goopy and makes a large ‘egg’. For this recipe though I only used 2tsp of flaxmeal to 6 tsp of water as I thought with the other 30g already it wouldn’t need as much. It was great.
- 1/2 cup or 160g rice syrup, maple syrup or 120g honey ( You could also use stevia glycerate or erythritol if needs be, although I find them to taste very chemically).
- 125 ml or 1/2 cup coconut milk (there is a little fructose in coconut milk. If super sensitive / fructose malabsorption issues, replace with nut milk or whole milk)
- 100 g melted butter, ghee or coconut oil
- 1 large red apple, cut into approximate 1cm cubed size chunks about 1.5 cups of chopped apple - anywhere between 1-2 cups is fine though so don't stress.
Instructions
- Pop the oven on 180C / 350 F, non fan forced setting.
- Once you’ve got everything in your wet and dry bowls, just give them each a little stir through.
- Combine the bowls together and stir through until just combined.
- Leave for a minute to firm up.
- Pour into your cupcake cups, leaving 1cm off the top for rising.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, doing a skewer test at 20 minutes to check. Skewer comes out clean? You’re done.
THERMOMIX or MY Cook NOTE
- Melt butter for 2 mins on 90C. Then pop everything else in except the apple (make sure you do egg last so the hot butter doesn’t cook it) and blend on Speed 6 for 5 seconds. Reverse Speed 5 for 5 seconds. Done. Then stir in your apple chunks and voila. Ready to line your cupcake tin.
