Vegan Orange and Poppy Seed Muffins xx

Hello November! Or as some like to call it, Movember. In honour of my hairy male cam padres, I have procured some very special cookie cutters which I will share with you later in the month. 

For now, I would like to share these bad boys. I took them to work last night and was told things like "You should start your own bakery." I would. If that didn't entail getting up at 2 am. I'm not an early riser at the best of times and honesty, even though I adore the bounty of baked goods these fine people have to offer and believe that they are extremely talented individuals- Bakers, nothing personal, but you are nuts. I'm guessing it's one of those professions where you have to really love your job for all the hard work and crazy hours you do. That's kinda how many people think about my job, but hey. That's another story. 

Back to the whole "you should start your own bakery thing" before my night shift brain left me wantonly sidetracked. That is testament to how good these little fellas are. I had none of the usual "oh.... they're vegan?" lines. Just plain "These are delicious". A definite winner with the omnivores. 

Enough rambling. On with the show.

Time: 10 minutes prep. 25 minutes baking. (Yep, that's 25 minutes of blissful nothing or fantastic multitasking up your sleeve.)

Makes: Lucky 16.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of plain flour.
• Three quarters of a cup of raw sugar. 
• 1 Tablespoon of baking soda. (this did say 4 teaspoons, but just to be sure!)
• One third of a cup of apple sauce (this will be in the sauce section of your supermarket).
• Three quarters of a cup of veggie milk (I used rice milk).
• One third of a cup of light oil (I used canola).
• Two teaspoons of orange essence (in the baking section, near the vanilla essence).
• One Tablespoon of poppy seeds (in the herb section). 

Method:

Place all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Using a hand blender, mix them all together until the ingredients are smooth and creamy. It will thicken like a normal cake batter should. 

If you don't have a hand blender, just stir really well and try to get as many lumps out as you can. You may want to add the ingredients bit by bit.

Grease a muffin tray and add about a tablespoon of batter to each one, or half fill each hole. 

Place in an oven at 180C or 375F for about 25 minutes or until the cakes have browned and you can poke a skewer in them and have it come out looking clean. 

Place on a cake rack to cool completely. 

The icing goes a little something like this:

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of icing sugar.
• 1 Tablespoon orange essence. 
• 1 Tablespoon of veggie butter, such as nuttelex.

Method:

Mix in a small bowl with a fork until the ingredients have come together and are looking creamy and you can create peaks with the mixture. Place about a tablespoon onto each muffin and top with poppy seeds. 

Alternatively, you can pop a very small/ thin slice of orange onto each muffin before cooking and they will come out looking fab.