Sweet of the Week #1i, Orange Flax Muffins

This week’s Ingredient is Flax Seed.  I occasionally use flax seed meal as an egg replacement and I eat milled flax seed almost everyday sprinkled on hot cereal.  It’s a great way for a vegetarian to add a little Omega 3 to the diet. Until making these muffins, I had never built a recipe around flax seed.  The result is delicious AND healthy.  What a great way to kick off the New Year!

(Inspired by this recipe, which is adapted from The Golden Door Cooks Light and Easy.)

Orange Flax Muffins (makes 16)
3/4 cup cooked red quinoa
1/2 cup oat flour (you can make your own in the food processor or buy it pre-made)

1/2 cup flax seed meal
3/4 cup corn flour (not corn meal)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon guar gum

2/3 cup pitted dates, chopped
2 oranges and their zest
1 large banana, ripe is best
1/3 cup apple juice
2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 egg
1 Tablespoon flax meal in 3 Tablespoons of hot water

Optional:
2 Tablespoons Golden Milled Flax Seed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  You will need a muffin pan or two, this makes 16.  I used cupcake papers for mine. If you do not use papers, use a non-stick cooking spray in your muffin pan.

1.  Cook quinoa according to package directions.  Set aside, allowing to cool to room temperature.

2.  Put 1 Tablespoon flax meal in 3 Tablespoons of hot water, set aside.  This will become thick and gel-like. Instead of using two eggs for this recipe, we’ll use flax to replace one of them.  This reduces calories and cholesterol a little.

3.  Mix oat flour, flax seed meal, corn flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, guar gum and cooked quinoa in a large mixing bowl.  Set aside.

4.  Zest two oranges and set zest aside.  Peel oranges and separate into segments.  Remove as much of the outer membrane from the orange segments as is practical.  Chop into pieces (about 3 pieces per segment, just small enough so they will blend well in the food processor).

5.  Chop dates in food processor.  They may turn into a ball in the food processor, which is fine as long as they are chopped. Remove from food processor for a moment.

6.  Combine banana, apple juice, brown sugar, honey, egg, flax seed meal dissolved in water and orange segments in food processor.  Pulse until mixture resembles a thick smoothie.  Add dates and orange zest.  Pulse until all ingredients are well combined and no large chunks of dates remain.

7.  Add fruit mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.  Blend until just combined. 

8.  Add a scant 1/3 cup of batter to each muffin cavity. Optional: sprinkle the top of each muffin with a bit of golden milled flax seed before baking.  Bake at 350 for 24 minutes.  A toothpick inserted will come out clean.  Cool for a few minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Nutritional info based on the ingredients I used: 137.5 calories each, 4 grams fat, 23 grams carbs, 4 grams fiber, 10 grams sugar, 6.5 grams protein. Weight Watchers points = 4.

These are really good warm, still moist the second day and they freeze well.  Part of this year’s challenge for me will be not eating an entire batch of a Sweet, since I am not sharing with a friend each week.  And my neighbors are all dieting. If they could smell these muffins baking, their New Year’s Resolutions would have ended.  So delicious!