Saturday 1 March 2008

Grape start to your day...

I love grapes. My favourites are the blue coronation grapes. I love that tart/sweet taste that comes in every bite of these blue beauties. Each fall I eat many a pound of fresh grapes and then I start freezing as many pounds as I can crowd into my freezer. I am fortunate enough to live where they can grow and I appreciate having locally grown grapes through the winter months. Besides eating grapes on their own or adding them to fruit salad I like to bake with them. Here's one recipe I enjoy.
Grape Muffins**
1-1/2 cups orange juice (fresh or from concentrate)
1/3 cup oil (I use grape or olive or coconut)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
Grated zest of one orange (organic!)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats)
1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
1 cup fresh or (thawed) frozen coronation (seedless) grapes
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a 12- cup muffin pan.
  2. Put the orange juice, oil, syrup and orange zest into a medium bowl and whisk until well blended.
  3. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl until combined.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry using as few strokes as possible to avoid overmixing. Fold in the grapes.
  5. Fill muffin cups about three quarters full with batter.
  6. Bake for 20-25 minutes and then let the muffins cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pan.

** This recipe is an adaptation from the Blueberry Orange Muffin recipe in John Robbins' book, May All Be Fed.

2 comments:

Nicola said...

I would never have thought of baking with grapes...but these sound good.

this is my patch said...

These look lovely all tumbling out of your muffin tray, would love one of those for my breakfast in a minute, may just have to stick with scrambled eggs! x