Ça roule, ma poule.*
I’m new to the whole Chia-craze. The gluten-free bread I buy has chia seeds in it, but beyond that I’ve had little cause to try them. Today, something possessed me to buy a packet, so when I got home I thought I had better do something with them.
As I’ve said in previous posts, I’ve missed muffins since I stopped eating gluten. When I was at school, I would occasionally succeed in convincing my mum to buy these enormous blueberry muffins as an after-school snack. Blueberries are a good fruit to bake with, because they hold their shape relatively well, and you don’t have to waste time removing stones or stems. This makes them the perfect addition to a muffin recipe, where all you really need to do is dump all the ingredients into a bowl and stir. Too easy.
You can make these muffins with a non-dairy milk if you’d prefer, and, for a nut-free alternative, you can easily substitute the almond meal for the same quantity of flour or oat bran.
I feel I should warn you: these are really delicious. If you can stop at just one, then you must be a very strong individual, and I applaud you.
Blueberry, Almond and Chia Muffins
makes 6 muffins
3/4 cup gluten-free self-raising flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup milk (any type of milk is fine)
125g blueberries
2tbsp chia seeds
1/3 cup almond meal
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp cinnamon
- Preheat oven to 180ºC. Line a 6-hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
- Whisk together flour, sugar, almond meal, cinnamon and chia seeds. Stir in blueberries.
- Add egg and milk to the dry mixture, and stir well to combine. Spoon the batter into the muffins cases.
- Cook for 35 minutes or until the bottom of the muffin cases sound hollow when tapped. Allow to sit for 10 minutes in the muffin tin, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Keeping time: 3-4 days.
* I learned this French expression a week or so ago. It’s just a cute way of saying “okay/that works”, but I thought it was quite funny so I’ve been using it a lot.
