The First Mess » coconut sugar

antioxidant power muffins (for your health)

Laura Wright — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:00:10 +0000

I like muffins, I do. I can truthfully say that I’ve turned down invitations to go for a beer with friends in favor of cooking up a dozen. Actually heard over the phone in the background: “What, is she 80 years old?!” It was worth it.

I always gravitate towards the crumble topped, glazed or chocolate flecked varieties out of habit though… because it’s like eating a piece of cake. A piece of cake that you can sometimes have with a hot drink and call it breakfast. Oh, and healthy muffins are generally terrible. Like, more terrible than mornings pre-coffee. I wanted this to be different in a real way.

Here’s the thing. It’s hard to make a homemade, legitimately healthy muffin that tastes AMAZING + looks completely beautiful. I have high expectations in a general way. Brown, dome-y cake things are not always tasty and are definitely not inherently glamorous. I wanted it to be real good on all fronts for your health. Sometimes I irrationally worry about offering up recipes for more humble fare here. A muffin is not the most totally unique snowflake-kind of thing to post on a food blog, but it is decidedly everyday and approachable. I am slowly learning that this is enough.

When I lived in the city, I used to pop into the nearby Whole Foods from time to time for a matcha tea and one of their lovely vegan muffins. But it wasn’t entirely muffin-like! They baked them in petite bundt pans and put a sweet little glaze on top. The ingredients were all health-supporting for sure and the small hit of glaze brought it back into light indulgence territory. The idea was to emulate the overall feel of their muffin and fill the recipe out with things I really love.

I went to work, consulted with a new and wonderful book, and here we are. It’s a beauty, I assure you. It’s key to go wild with flavour-y things when undertaking more health-centric, vegan baking. The spices, the vanilla, the add-ins; they all work together to make a non buttered + egged treat so delicious. If I’m vegan-izing/health-ing something up, I generally double the vanilla specified, use spices and citrus zest with abandon, and reach for flavourful fats like nut butters or coconut oil as an overall strategy. Also, stirring the batter gently until just incorporated is key for a nice texture. You could apply that principle to any muffin recipe, but especially here with the inclusion of 100% whole grain flour.

In this particular breakfast marvel, I’ve used hearty spelt flour, almond meal, chia and flax seeds, warming spices, tropical coconut oil + vanilla (still savoring the bottle miss Ashlae sent me), walnuts, tart dried cranberries, coconut palm sugar, a smidge of banana to amp up the natural sweetness and some frozen Ontario blueberries stirred in to remind us of summer’s gifts. I topped them off with a zesty clementine glaze for an inviting hit of freshness. These would be perfect for a weekend brunch at home. Your grandma would be so proud of you for baking these on a Saturday night, just a thought :)

antioxidant power muffins + clementine glaze
adapted from Dr. Weil’s True Food
serves: makes 7-8 little bundts or 12 normal muffins
notes: If you eat them, feel free to replace the mashed banana with 3 beaten eggs to avoid any trace of banana-ness. Also! I know if you’re high on health, you might want to turn your nose up at the glaze portion. I found it pretty crucial to the whole experience. This batter isn’t terribly sweet, so the glaze has a rather serious function in the grand scheme (way serious).

muffins:
1 cup whole spelt flour
1/4 cup almond meal (or use more spelt if you like)
1 1/3 cups ground flax + chia seeds (or go with pure flax or pure chia)
2/3 cup coconut palm sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of fine sea salt
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 tbsp melted coconut oil + extra for greasing
1 3/4 cups milk of your choice (I used almond)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup frozen blueberries, thawed (or fresh if they’re in season)
3/4 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts
2 tbsp cacao nibs

clementine glaze:
juice and zest of 1 clementine
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease your mini bundt or muffin tins and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, almond meal, flax + chia seeds, coconut sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt.

Mash the banana in a separate medium bowl. Make sure it is fairly smooth. To the banana, add the coconut oil, milk and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine.

Scrape the banana and milk mixture into the dry indredients (flour, ground flax etc). Gently fold the batter until it is just combined/there are no more dry bits of flour. Add the blueberries, dried cranberries, walnuts, and cacao nibs and gently fold them into the batter until evenly distributed. The batter should be quite thick at this point.

Fill the muffin cups/bundts with the batter to 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean and muffins bounce back when you press your finger onto the tops. Cool the pans on a wire rack completely before turning out onto a plate.

While muffins are baking/cooling, make the glaze: whisk the clementine zest, juice and powdered sugar together until smooth. Apply glaze to the tops of completely cooled muffins.

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lemon poppy seed pancakes + something funny

Laura Wright — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:00:08 +0000

I made these gluten free and vegan pancakes rather spontaneously for my man and I a little while ago. Originally I just wanted to make some simple lemon cornmeal pancakes with sliced strawberries on top, but decided to add poppy seeds at the last minute to evoke that familiar and much-loved combo of ours. I made a syrup out of the sliced strawberries and some coconut palm sugar because (oops!) we were out of maple syrup. All the better. This combination was a total win. There’s that familiar crunch from the poppy seeds and the bright lemon zest that brings out the luscious and sweet berries. I’m loving the glut of them right now at the farm stands, rows of ruby red jewels in green quart containers. The cornmeal makes the pancakes gorgeously lemon-yellow too. It’s sunshine for brunch.

Seeing as I’m hitting the one year mark on this blog (crazy!), I thought I’d get a little, teeny-bit more personal. I have to confess something to all of you. Something crazy in a funny kind of way, something silly that isn’t all that earth shattering, but it’s kind of big for me. No judgment here, right? Okay. I only learned how to ride a bike about 5 years ago. I know, kind of weird. One afternoon I rode around all wobbly, had an alright time, bruised and dirtied up my legs a bit, flew into a giant bush, laughed in a way that only a young adult riding a bike for the first time can, felt a bit sore, felt amazing, might have cried once. Then I kind of forgot about it for a long time.

By that I mean I didn’t pursue it in a serious way. Here and there I would remember that it was a little fun, wish that I could navigate tight streets like all of the cyclists racing by when I lived in the city, so fast and free. I dismissed the thought of trying to take it seriously from my mind. It was more than nervousness and embarrassment getting in the way. I was genuinely scared to put the work in to make myself good at something, that people would see my lack of experience with something so basic, that I could actually hurt myself… I thought it was too late to get the whole thing on lock.

Then a few days ago Mark sent me a text with a picture of a beautiful, royal blue bike that was all mine. Despite the fear and embarrassment I had felt for most of my adult life about the whole thing, I was really excited and motivated by his confidence. We went for a little ride that night, sky grey-ing over, a storm looming. Riding around in circles in an empty parking lot, practicing turns, braking, big smile on my face the whole time, laughing at all of the little wobbles. I was hooked right away, instagram-ing it (naturally), plotting when to go riding next, all of the little improvements we could make to my sweet new ride and on and on. The sun came out and set over the water. We watched it on some big, craggy rocks, waves crashing in. I could hardly sleep that night; the excitement, the change in direction, the new light that was right here. Ever feel that? It had been a while for me.

Similarly, I started this blog and opened up a big part of my life to anyone passing through about a year ago (first post here! Oooh boy). I had wanted to for a while, ideas of it bubbling away in the back of my mind, hesitation abounding (I thought it was too late to get on the food blog thing, but oh hey: here’s something recent from Shanna proving that totally wrong). A few friendly nudges here and there from amazing people, and here we are today. I’m so happy that we are here because it lets me connect with all of you over a few words, an image, a bite to eat… I know I’m really fortunate to have encouraging and wonderful people around, to live in such an inspiring environment and to have a partner that pushes me to not be afraid of anything. I’m also so grateful for all of you who read, who drive me forward to do better, those who say such lovely things at just the right time.. you’re all so great. I love sharing my life and little food anecdotes with you here. Hopefully we can ride along together for a while longer :)

All love,
Laura

GF and vegan lemon poppy pancakes with juicy strawberries
serves: 2-3
notes: If you have a trusty GF flour blend that you love, feel free to replace my listed flours (rice and sorghum) and arrowroot here with the blend (you’ll need a total of 1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour). Or, you could replace the same amount with spelt, whole wheat, all purpose or other gluten-containing flour if you like (again, 1 cup + 2 tbsp flour total).

berries:
2 cups sliced strawberries
2 tbsp coconut palm sugar
juice of half a lemon
tiny splash of vanilla extract

pancakes:
1 cup non-dairy milk (+ extra depending)
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp rice flour (brown or white)
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
1/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1/4 cup melted extra virgin coconut oil + extra for the pan/griddle
3.5 tbsp agave nectar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced berries with the coconut sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. Allow to sit and macerate/get juicy while you make the pancakes.

Stir the non-dairy milk and lemon juice together. Set aside and allow to curdle while you mix up the other ingredients.

In a large bowl, combine the rice and sorghum flour, arrowroot powder, cornmeal, baking powder, lemon zest and poppy seeds. Add the coconut oil, agave nectar, vanilla extract and the non-dairy milk and lemon juice mixture. Stir with a spatula until thoroughly combined. I had to add an extra couple tablespoons of milk at this point to get it to that typical pancake batter consistency, but yours might be different depending on whether you use different flour.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Lightly brush the skillet surface with melted coconut oil. Drop 1/4 cup portions of the batter onto the pan and gently spread the batter out with a small spatula. Once you see little bubbles in the batter and the edges look a bit dry and golden, flip them over, about 1/2 minute. Cook the other side until golden. Remove and set cooked pancakes on a warming plate. Repeat with remaining batter.

Serve warm with the juicy strawberries spooned on top and a dollop of yogurt if you like.

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everything cookies + sweetness

Laura Wright — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:25:16 +0000

The sun just shines on and on. I always have to remember that. We’ve been having unseasonably warm and pleasant weather in my pocket of the world. This is concerning in a lot of ways, but it’s also kind of nice. We’ve done some grilling, had time in the sun, gone for longer walks, little green things are poking up in the garden, and most importantly: sandwiching ice cream between cookies has become a bit of a thing. Happy spring days for all. The earth seems to wake up a little bit and give us all a sign of the miracles that lie beneath. A wave hello, amazement, brilliance, life, smiles, everything…

In general I admire everything that cookies represent: portability, preparation, variety, adaptability, staying power, loving gestures and a bit of sweetness. I’ve always gravitated toward cookies like these little wonders: sort of energy bar-ish, lots of stuff in them and oat based. They’re lovely to take on a hike, bike ride, scenic walk etc. and frantically(!) nom at the end of it all. Delicious, wholesome, nutrient dense, gluten free, vegan and surprising.

I made these with coconut sugar, my new sweetener obsession of choice (I’m toting packets of it in my bag for coffees on the road now). It’s derived from coconut tree sap and is kind of brown sugar-ish with a bit of complexity. You can swap it 1:1 for any dry sweetener (like sugar, brown sugar, sucanat etc). I also used a pre-fab gluten free flour blend for these cookies as an experiment. Typically I’ll mix up my own depending on what I’m making, but I realize that this step isn’t for everyone. Convenience won this round and the results were delicious, a perfect everyday cookie. A little rough and textured, yummy surprises within, nicely sweet, a bit complex, open to change/interpretation and particularly wonderful with ice cream. That’s living! Cookie metaphors? You bet we’re going there.

everything cookies
adapted from here
serves: makes 2 1/2 dozen
notes: Give the flax and water some proper gelling time (like a good 5 minutes) to achieve that egg-like consistency. Also, whatever GF flour blend you use, make sure it has potato or some other type of starch in it to hold things together.

3 tbsp ground flax seeds
3/4 cup water
1 cup gluten free flour blend (I used Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose)
1/4 cup almond meal
1 cup gluten free oats
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
2.5 cups add-ins (I used pumpkin seeds, dried sour cherries, chopped walnuts and dark chocolate chips)
1/3 cup soft coconut oil (not liquid, but not crazy hard either)
1/4 cup grape seed oil
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Mix the ground flax seeds with the water in a small bowl and set aside, stirring here and there. It should be thick and gel-like by the time you’re ready to use it.

In a large bowl, mix the gluten free flour blend, almond meal, oats, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, xanthan gum, sea salt and various add ins. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the soft coconut oil and grapeseed oil. Mix on medium speed until combined. Add the flax and water mixture. Mix on medium speed until a thick mixture is achieved, about 1 minute. Add the coconut sugar and maple syrup. Mix on medium for another minute.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the dry ingredients. Mix gently with a spatula until thoroughly combined and there is no visible flour left in the dough.

Drop the dough onto the lined baking sheets in heaped tablespoonfuls. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the process. Remove from the oven and cool thoroughly on the sheets.