CARROT & ORANGE MUFFINS WITH SALTED WALNUT CRUMB

Hey everyone! This is Rita here. I must say, I am pretty excited about this recipe. Since I'm a natural sweet-tooth with a passion for baking, I feared I'd never get my cakes right when we became vegan. At least not without having to use processed ingredients such as vegan butters and vegan egg replacements. Well, I've learned from experience that there is absolutely nothing to fear. There's art and there's science in baking, and if you combine a generous pinch of creativity with the knowledge of how to come up with a great muffin batter, odds are your results will be stellar, even if you're vegan and use nothing but whole ingredients. I've easily baked more than 60 of these muffins and they come out so damn good every time that it's got me thinking how did I ever use dairy products and eggs in my baked goods! They're fluffly, airy, sweet and fragrant. They've got the perfect crunch from the chopped walnuts and on top of it all, they're healthy and cruelty-free.

I've got a thing for oranges (perhaps because we live in Algarve, the land of oranges) and their juice and zest taste awesome in these muffins. Adding vegetables like carrots to your baked treats is great not only because they're nutritious but also because they help keep the muffin fluffly and moist. With the addition of some warming spices like cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg to the carrots and oranges, your house will be smelling heavenly once you're done baking these! To sweeten these muffins I've used a combination of equal parts coconut sugar and powdered jaggery. Coconut sugar has been named the most sustainable natural sweetener in the world. It contains traces of nutrients and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and zinc and it ranks considerably low in the glycemic index. Jaggery is predominantly made in India, from the sap of plants like sugar cane and date palm. It is much more complex than refined sugar and is therefore its closest and healthiest alternative. It is rich in minerals, salts, vitamins and even fiber and it provides energy slowly, over a long period of time. In India, it is even used as a remedy for a number of respiratory tract illnesses.

These muffins are not overly sweet at all and you will be able to taste every single ingredient and spice in them. The salted walnut crumb is the perfect topping. It is just salty enough to take the flavours to another level of YUM. I hope you're as excited to bake these as I was to share the recipe with you guys. Let me know how they turn out!