Working With a Basic Recipe: (Almost Vegan) Pineapple Muffins

In my experiences with baking, I’ve run into more than a few occasions where I’ve realized a little too late that I’m missing an ingredient. Today was one of those days. It happened to coincide perfectly with this assignment though, since I decided not to take that extra trip to the store and create a muffin recipe using what I had on hand.

My Alterations

I wasn’t just out of one ingredient today, I was out of a few. Specifically sugar, oil and eggs. I’ve baked without eggs before, regularly scant my sugar and have used mashed banana to substitute oil many a time, but never have I tried to substitute all three.

Beginning with sugar, I decided I would use liquid sweeteners in the form of honey and juice which I hoped would add additional flavour.

For eggs, I substituted my favourite vegan baking substitute – 1 T of chia seeds mixed with 1/4 cup of water. I used two chia “eggs” for this particular recipe.

Oil was my biggest concern. As I mentioned above, I have substituted mashed banana numerous times, but today I didn’t have any of those either. I decided to try crushed canned pineapple and use the juice from it as part of my liquid component.

Because I was using pineapple, I also used Silke Coconut Milk in place of regular dairy milk because I thought it would be a complimentary flavour.

I decided to replace the sugar from the original recipe with additional flour because I was concerned that removing that much dry ingredient would effect the consistency. I also increased the liquid amount since my pineapple substitute meant less liquidy volume. I did not change baking powder amounts because that is something I don’t have much experience experimenting with.

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups white flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t cinnamon

Liquid Ingredients:

• 2 T chia seeds mixed with 1/2 cup water. Let stand ten minutes until it has a thin gel-like consistency.
• 1 cup Silk Coconut Milk
• 3/4 cup pineapple juice squeezed from a can of crushed pineapple
• 1/2 cup crushed canned pineapple
• 1/4 cup liquid honey

Equipment:

• Large and medium mixing bowls
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Wooden mixing spoon
• Muffin tin
• Liquid measuring cups
• Can opener
• Pam spray or cupcake liners

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Method

• To begin, preheat your oven to 350’F.
• Create two chia “eggs” by mixing 2T of chia seeds with 1/2 cup of water. Set aside ten minutes until the water has a thin gel-like consistency.

• In large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and set aside.

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• Next, press 3/4 cup of pineapple juice from the can of crushed pineapple using the back of a wooden spoon.
• In the small mixing bowl, combine the juice with the other liquid ingredients – this includes the Silk Coconut Milk, crushed pineapple, liquid honey, and the chia “eggs”.

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• Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners or spray with Pam.
• Next, pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients that you set aside and mix together thoroughly.
• Once mixed, spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan. I was able to use all the batter to make exactly one dozen muffins (which I loved, because I hate having to put in another batch of just a couple muffins so I don’t waste leftover batter).
• Let bake in oven for 30 minutes.

The Finished Product

Well, some things work out and some things don’t. I would put this recipe right in the middle. It’s pretty tasty, mildly sweet, has a nice pineapple flavour, but the texture didn’t cut it for me. I was hoping for a muffin with a nice crumbly texture but this turned out too moist and chewy.

I would like to try this recipe again but more closely follow the original dry goods to liquids ratio. I also plan on doing just one substitution at a time so I can isolate where I went wrong. Overall this was a really fun experiment and lesson!

P.S. Thankfully my daughter loved them. 🙂