Breakfast Muffins with Granola – Collaboration with SNACT

Earth Day

When I was a lot younger, we celebrated Earth Day at home by turning the lights off after dinner. We would sit, for one glorious, fluorescent-light-less hour, around the sitting room table. Before the lights went off, my sister and I would run through the house, gathering all the candles we could find (my mother, a huge fan of Bath&Bodyworks, had quite the collection). We would then assemble them in front of the telly, and light them with our huge kitchen matches. I loved it when the candles were all lit, their wicks set alight with tiny flickering flames, throwing ominous shadows onto the walls surrounding us.

I don’t know exactly how much good that hour did for the Earth. Although we sat in the candlelight, we did so while watching the telly with the ceiling fan spinning pirouettes above us. So this Earth day, I have decided to give YOU a crazy good breakfast muffin recipe which will help you to reduce food waste.

Obviously, there is a lot that you can do for the environment besides cutting down on your food waste. You can use less plastic (more on this later), recycle, use water wisely, eat a more plant-based diet… But since this is a recipe blog, I am going to do what I do best, and show you how you can turn some wonky ol’ fruit and veg into golden, crunchy, breakfast muffins. With little nuggets of…

SNACT BARS

SNACT is a company that is doing their part to tackle the HUGE food waste problem here in the UK. They take unwanted, but still perfectly good fruit, and transform it into delicious fruit jerky and snack bars.

Why is perfectly good fruit being chucked away? you ask. Because they aren’t the right colour, or the right shape, or size. This is fruit that would look less-than-pristine sat on supermarket shelves or in farmer’s market stands. Even though they are 100% delicious. SNACT takes all this surplus, wonky fruit, and stew+dehydrate them into chewy little bits of fruit jerky, or press them into snack bars (which kept me sane during5-hour ward rounds).

ON TOP OF THIS (yes, there is more) their packaging is totally compostable & plastic free. As someone who is trying to reduce the amount of package waste I make (and as a result has been forced to questions my snack-buying habits), this made me very, very happy.

I loved working on this muffin recipe with SNACT, and while the bars are completely scrumptious (and almost frustratingly easy to eat 1000 of) on their own, they add a little pop of concentrated fruity flavour into my breakfast muffins.

Breakfast Muffins (with a cause)

In following with SNACT’s rescuing-ugly-fruit-cause, these muffins rescue whatever fruit you have at home. You know, those spotty, slightly mushy bananas you have languishing on the countertop? Or those shrivelled up, slightly wrinkled apples you have hiding at the bottom of your produce drawer? It’s time to give them a makeover.

We puree them, fold them into a spicy, muffin batter and dollop it into a muffin tin. Their tops are lavished with brimming handfuls of granola and pepitas, before being popped into the oven so that they can TRANSFORM into the best breakfast ever (a transformation that akin to how SNACT magics ugly fruit into tasty jerky)

When they are out of the oven, the muffins have a mahogany sheen, with the floral aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg rising from the pan. In fact, you can smell them a mere 10 minutes into their baking time – the ethereal, buttery scent of spiced muffin batter practically floods your kitchen.

Of course, these breakfast muffins are delicious as is. But, as with most baked goods, is even better when sliced down the centre, and smeared with a generous amount of (vegan!) butter. AND while these muffins may be breakfast muffins, nothing is stopping you from tucking into one (or two!) during the languid hours of the afternoon. The breakfast muffins themselves make a great accompaniment to the acidic tang of a cup of English breakfast tea. In fact, I have tried (and highly recommend) tearing off chunks and dipping it into milky tea, leaving it just long enough for the spongy tuft of bread to absorb just a smidge of liquid.

Anything but the Kitchen Sink

While the recipe calls for a half cup each of applesauce and mashed banana, the possibilities are endless. Pureed squash, sweet potato, pineapples, pumpkin, prunes… the sky’s the limit. You can even sub up to 1/2 cup of vegan yogurt for some of the fruit.

If you do choose to use bananas, make sure to use them when they are past their prime, and are overly freckled and caramelised. Scoop out the pale, custardy flesh and mash it well before folding it into the batter.

Whenever, and however, you chose to enjoy your muffins, be sure to gobble your portion down with ferocious delight. Because, trust me, this is breakfast muffin nirvana. And they don’t last long.

Psssttt… as if this post wasn’t sweet enough, SNACT is giving all of my followers 20% off their products (bars AND jerky!) with the code SASHA. Hop on over here to snag yourself this sweet (literally) deal.