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You are going to love these healthy cherry Bakewell muffins! A one-bowl recipe you can have done and baking in less than 5 minutes! They’re refined sugar-free, dairy-free and full of flavour.
We’ve been experimenting with ingredients over the last few months to try and come up with the lightest, fluffiest vegan muffins without using eggs and butter.
Oh yes, there isn’t any butter of any kind in this recipe. So, if like us you don’t like plant butter, you’re sure to love these!
Related Post – Coconut Sugar – A Healthy Sugar Alternative?
The Odd Ingredients In Vegan Baking
So for these tasty vegan muffins, you’ll need a few slightly different ingredients. These ingredients are necessary for plant-based baking to get them light and fluffy. No more rubbery vegan muffins that taste a bit like cardboard.
- Apple cider vinegar
- Coconut Oil
- Yoghurt
- Flax eggs
Origins Of The Cherry Bakewell
The origin of the cherry Bakewell began in the picturesque town of Bakewell in the Derbyshire Peak District. It started out as a Bakewell tart in a pastry case before being changed and adapted over the years to the various Bakewell treats you can find these days.
It’s said the pudding was actually invented by a lady called Mrs Greaves, who was the landlady of the White Horse Inn back in the late 18th century.
This Bakewell tart created by mistake when Mrs Greaves misunderstood the recipe for a strawberry tart and ended up topping it with a soft almond custard.
Apple Cider Vinegar
This ingredient might seem a little odd to add to a sweet muffin recipe. However, it’s one of the elements that will make your muffins lighter inside.
When you add the apple cider vinegar to the milk/water mix, you’ll immediately start to see bubbles begin to form. This is what you want in your muffins to make them less dense.
Make sure any apple cider vinegar you buy comes WITH the Mother – very important!
Coconut Yogurt
Coconut yoghurt will help to keep your muffins super moist and fluffy. It also helps to activate the bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, meaning your bakes will be lighter and more spongy.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is perfect for baking sweet treats as it is naturally sweeter than most other oils. It’s also a lighter ingredient than butter, so you’re baking will come out fluffier and less dense. Use code BECKY5 for 5% OFF coconut oil from KoRo.
However, if you don’t have coconut oil, you could also use vegetable oil instead.
Related Post – The Many Simple Benefits Of Using Coconut Oil
Flax Egg
Ok, so this one is probably better known in the vegan baking world. This flax egg will help to combine the ingredients, in much the same way a real egg would.
They work best in flour-based recipes – pancakes, cupcakes, muffins…etc, and when a recipe says to mix by hand. Flax eggs don’t work as well in an electric whisker.
How To Make A Flax Egg
A flax egg is made when you mix one teaspoon of milled flaxseed with three teaspoons of water, mix together and leave to stand for at least 5 minutes. It will seem very small when you do it.
However, a little goes a long way, you really don’t need much to make a difference.
How To Make These Cherry Bakewell Muffins
Start off by preheating the oven to 180 C (Fan). Whilst your oven is heating up, make your flax egg by combining your flaxseed with 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl.
If you are baking x12 cupcakes, you will need to chop x6 whole cherries in half for the decoration. Once chopped in half, pace these to one side.
In a separate bowl, add all of the dry ingredients and combine. Make a well in the centre of your flour mixture and pour in the apple cider vinegar, yoghurt, flax egg, water and milk and lightly combine. Once almost together, gently fold in the chopped cherries.
Fill your muffin cases 3/4 full and place one half cherry on the top of each muffin, shiny side up.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. After 20 minutes, check to see if they are done by inserting a skewer in to the centre. If it comes out clean, they are done. If it doesn’t come out clean, put back in for another 2-3 minutes and check again.
Leave in the baking tray for at least 10 minutes before removing to fully cool on a wire rack.
These muffins will last for up to 4 days in an air tight container in the fridge.
Vegan Cherry Bakewell Muffins Recipe
These light and fluffy, healthy cherry Bakewell muffins are simply delicious! With notes of nutty almonds, and topped with sweet glace cherries. A simple, yet great twist on the original cherry Bakewell tart.
If you decide to use icing sugar to drizzle across the top, you might even get away with being able to use a whole cherry, pushed down into the gooey icing.
This easy-to-follow vegan recipe will help you to create professional-looking cupcakes, perhaps even something that could be mistaken to be from an artisan bakery. Perfect for afternoon tea, or as a sweet treat – just because!
Vegan Cherry Bakewell Muffins
Ingredients
- 100g Plain Flour
- 125g Self Raising Wholemeal Flour
- 1/2 tsp Bicarb Soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 100g Coconut Sugar
- 100g Ground Almonds
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 30g Coconut Oil
- 1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tbsp Coconut Yogurt
- 1 Flax Egg (1 tsp flax seed, 3 tsp water. Mix & leave for 5 minutes)
- 150 mls Almond Milk
- 150 mls Water
- 100g Glace Cherries Plus extra to place on the top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 C (Fan)
- While the oven is heating up, make your flax egg by adding the flaxseed and water to a small bowl. Combine and leave for 5 minutes.
- Chop x12 whole cherries in half and place to one side – these are for your toppings.
- Separate to the half cherries, you then need to finely chop the rest of the cherries. Once chopped finely, leave to one side.
- In a large separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and create a well in the centre.
- In the well, add in the apple cider vinegar, flax egg, yoghurt, water and milk and combine with the flour very gently.
- Once you have mixed the wet and dry ingredients, add in the chopped cherries and fold very lightly.
- Fill the muffin cases with your batter until 3/4 full and place a half chopped cherry on the top of each muffin.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
- After 20 minutes, check to see if they are done by inserting a skewer in to the centre. If it comes out clean, they are done. If it doesn't come out clean, put back in for another 2-3 minutes and check again.
- Once baked, leave to cool completely before removing from the tray. Once at room temperature, remove the cupcakes and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
- These muffins will last for up to 4 days in an air tight container in the fridge.
Notes
Recipe Notes
Want A Crunchy Toping?
If you wanted to make these healthy cherry Bakewell muffins a little more decadent, you could top them with a little icing sugar and brown sugar. The icing sugar makes them look great and the brown sugar gives a lovely sweet crunch.
Related Post – Homemade Refined Sugar Free Breakfast Banana Muffins
Add A Drop Of Vanilla
Although we haven’t used vanilla extract in these vegan cherry Bakewell muffins, you could add a few drops into the wet mixture to level up the flavour slightly. It also helps to bring out the flavour of the cherries – but it isn’t a necessity. However, the ground almonds give these vegan muffins a great taste anyway should you decide not to add the vanilla extract.
Super Size It!
Another quick alteration to this recipe – if you don’t want to create lots of cupcakes in muffin tins, you could bake one large cake instead. You will, however, need to alter the timings for this as it will take much longer to cook. If you decide to do this, make sure you watch it closely from around 25 minutes onwards and prick it to find out when it’s cooked all the way through.
Related Post – A Simple Vegan Chocolate Chip Cupcake Recipe
Did You Make These Cherry Bakewell Muffins?
Baking vegan recipes doesn’t have to be difficult at all. All you need to do is think outside the box a little, and perhaps do a bit of research on new ingredients. However, once you’ve done it a few times, it’s actually pretty easy.
We hope you love these vegan cherry Bakewell muffins as much as we do – let us know in the comments below if you gave them a try!
If you did love these vegan muffins, you might also really enjoy these blueberry and lemon crumble slices.
Absolutely delicious very light and packed with flavour. Will make some for my lovely Mother-in-law!
What a fantastic recipe! So light and fluffy, delicious! And healthy too! Yum! 😊😋
Tasted amazing! You couldn’t tell it was healthy at all.
Aww thank you so much. So glad you enjoyed them. x