Living in Harmony

I searched last night for a dairy-free recipe for banana muffins, and the ones I found just didn’t seem to be what I wanted. So I ended up playing around with a couple of different recipes to make one dairy free. Always dangerous, especially if you’re not a baker. But they actually turned out really awesome so I need to write the recipe down before I forget what I did.

This was delicious, and definitely a recipe I will make again. I tend to be the kind of cook who makes substitutions rather than run out to the store if I think I have something on hand that would be just as good. So I’ve typed up the recipe as it’s meant to be, but when I made it, I used cranberry juice instead of apple juice, and I only had enough maple syrup for half what I needed and used honey to make up the rest.

This is a delicious chocolate cake that does not taste like beets at all. A friend suggested adding a small amount of apple cider vinegar would keep the beet colour if you wanted it to look more like a red velvet cake, but I haven't tried that. We drizzled a raspberry chocolate glaze over the confectioners' sugar and it was perfect. Meredith added some sprinkles to her piece.

I can’t give credit for the recipe as I kind of combined a few different recipes together. I couldn’t find fresh or frozen cranberries anywhere, so I rehydrated dried ones. The muffins turned out really good, except it was drier than I expected at the end and so I think I overmixed it a little bit. Still, they were infinitely better than storebought ones.

This is adapted from this recipe, and was absolutely perfect with some fresh local strawberries and spinach straight out of the garden. This is how I made it.