In lots of healthy baking you see applesauce, pumpkin, banana, and yogourt substituted for oil and butter. Well you can use chia too. Apparently you can replace up to half of the butter in a baked recipe with chia gel. I used a previous muffin recipe and cut down the butter accordingly. I posted more details on chia seeds, and how to make chia gel here.
The result was great, I couldn’t tell that any butter had been cut, and in fact these muffins still had a rich buttery taste to them. The nice thing about the chia, unlike apple or a fruit substitute is that it doesn’t impart a significant flavour on the end product. You can of course also make these the regular way, all butter and all white flour.
This muffin recipe uses fresh local cherries with a pinch of cardamom for spice and creates a nice snack or breakfast muffin. Although healthy because of the whole wheat flour and low fat content they are not dense or hearty enough to constitute a whole breakfast. For a strong cardamom flavour, double it.
(makes 12 muffins)
1/8 cup butter
*1/8 cup chia gel
2 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
*1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
2 cups fresh cherries, pitted
Preheat oven to 350F. Beat together butter, chia, eggs, vanilla, milk, sugar and salt (I used my vita mix). In a bowl combine flours, baking powder and cardamom. Stir wet into dry and just combined. Stir in cherries. Grease, or line a muffin tray and pour in. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
* Notes: You can use all white flour if you prefer, and rather then chia gel use all butter. Also, the cardamon is very subtle, next time I will double it just to see what it is like.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting. I know vegans use flax for an egg substitute but had never heard of chia before reading about it here. Does it affect the taste at all? Just curious.
Where do you get chia?
No, I didn't find it actually gave much flavour at all which is a nice benefit, plus it adds a ton of nutritional content.
these look pretty, and I love cardomom.
Such a lovely recipe using chia gel. I learnt something new today, thank you!
I totally have to try this. so interesting!
Very interesting. This is the first I've heard about Chia gel and I'm intrigued. And the muffins look great!
What yummy muffins, cardamom is my favorite spice to bake with and I enjoyed learning about chia gel!
aha! another adventurer :p
these look DELCIOUS. i love spiced baked goods, reminds me of autumn *sigh
I doubled the cardamon and used frozen black berries since it is January and I have no fresh cherries. Also, I made the chia gel with orange juice instead of water. DELICIOUS! Thanks for sharing.
orange juice? nice.
I was nervous to try this recipe because I wondered what the chia would do. They are amazing!!! I tried once with the original recipe and then with less sugar the net time and they still tasted great. Really liking your blog and all the interesting recipes
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