Lucuma Spice Muffins

I'm back! It's been a looooooong food blogging hiatus, for good reason. I've been busy with my now 9-month old! She is absolutely, positively, scrumptiously adorable and the love of my life, and the past 9 months have been incredible. And incredibly busy, since I've also started a new job. I have still been able to squeeze in some cooking and baking, although not as much as I used to of course. Over the long weekend, baking was on my to-do list, along with using up some of my lucuma powder. And so... along came this sweet but healthy little muffins!


Vegiosity momemt: What's lucuma? It's an awesome, sweet fruit from Peru. The first time I tried it I called it "mangukin" because it tasted like a cross between a mango and a pumpkin.

Recipe adapted from this recipe on Spark Recipes
Vegan Lucuma Spice Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups non-dairy milk (I like unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp pink Himalayan salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 dashes pumpkin pie spice (or more cinnamon)
• 6 Tbsp lucuma powder
• 1 tsp maca powder (optional)
• 2 tsp ground chia seeds + 2/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup mashed banana (1 small-medium ripe banana)
• 1 and 1/2 cup sugar (I used raw turbinado sugar)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Combine oats and milk in medium bowl, mix lightly, and set aside.
3. In a separate small bowl, whisk the ground chia seeds and water and set aside.
4. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour though powders) in (yet another!) medium bowl.
5. Mix the mashed banana and sugar together in a large bowl.
6. Add the chia mix into the banana/sugar mix, followed by the oat/milk mix, and finally the flour mix a little at a time. Try not to over-mix.
7. Spoon into greased on lined muffin pans.
8. Bake until you see little holes/bubbles in the batter and a toothpick comes out clean. For mini muffins, this is only about 15 minutes; larger muffins will take approximately 20-25 minutes.

Yum! These were a teeny bit gummy, but had a good flavor. I loved that these use chia seeds as the egg replacer, and that I got to use up some of my powders.

Speaking of vegan egg replacers, I saw this photo on Facebook and thought it was incredibly useful, so thought I'd share it!

I can't promise that I'll be posting again soon, what with my busy schedule and my little lady, but if you are new to the blog, please look around, and hopefully I'll have something to add again soon!

And yes, I absolutely love being a mom :-) It's hard, of course, but watching her discover new things blows my mind, hearing her laugh and giggle is the best sound in the world, and getting to hold and kiss her fills me with more love than I can possibly describe :-)