I completely stumbled across this whilst baking an Easter bunny cake for my yoga teacher during quarantine and it is super delicious, moist, interesting and so easy to make. Below are a couple of flavour suggestions but you can add whatever you like. I’ve played with the amount of sugar, I like to add less but feel free to add more if you like it sweeter. You can ever so slightly under bake them to make them even more gooey and scrumptious in the middle - just take them out the oven 5 minutes before. You will need a 12 hole muffin tray or 18-20cm cake tin.
Lemon, Lime and Cardamon Muffins
Lime Cashew Cream
Cake Batter
40g chia seeds
200ml water
3 tbsp sunflower oil
40g maple syrup
120g sugar
180g plain flour
6g baking powder
4g bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 heaped tsp ground cardamon
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Zest of 1 lime
Zest of 1 lemon
Glug of Oatly milk (or plant based milk of your choice)
Cashew Cream
300g soaked cashews (preferably overnight)*
20g maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla essense
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
Juice of 1 lime
120ml Oatly cream (or any plant based milk of your choice)
Preheat your oven to 180°C fan. Grease and/or line your cake tin or muffin tray.
Bloom the chia seeds in the water - making sure to give it a stir and let it sit for ten mins. Add the sunflower oil and maple syrup.
In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and mix until throughly combined, loosen with a glug of Oatly milk (or your choice of plant based milk) until you get a dropping consistency (unassisted dropping off a spoon would be ideal here). Spoon the mixture into your muffin tray and bake in the oven for 20 mins. The cake will take longer so check it after 35-40 minutes. It should be light and springy at the touch and bounce back when pressed.
While your cake or muffins are in the oven make the cashew cream. Simply blitz the soaked cashews, maple syrup, vanilla essence, cardamon, lime juice and Oatly cream. Keep tasting and adjust to your preference. It should be smooth and creamy, not overly runny - add more Oatly cream if it is too think. This will cool and set slightly in the fridge for you to ice your cupcakes and cake if you wish, otherwise pour it straight over your muffins and serve with a few gratings of lime zest.
For a chocolatey version of this - simply substitute the cardamon, cinnamon, lime and lemon zest for 80g cocoa powder.
*if you haven’t time to soak the cashews over night - you can get the same effect by sitting your cashews in boiling water for half an hour. Drain and use as instructed.