Blackberry, Courgette & Mint Muffins – Dairy-Free

Blackberries evoke fantastic childhood memories for me, from spending hours out in the fields picking them through to making blackberry and apple crumble with my gran. Somehow as a child my parents always bribed me to go on walks my telling me there would be blackberries to pick – I still to this day have no idea what they did when blackberries were out of season!

In my opinion you can’t beat picking something straight from a tree or bush and eating it. So unsurprisingly I still love blackberry picking and every year I have a fair few trips out standing in fields collecting blackberries. I find it  one of the most relaxing pass times, being out in the fresh air and eating fresh fruit, I think there probably still is a need to weigh me before and after entering a field/lane with blackberries in as I manage to eat as many as I pick!

As I’ve got older I’ve loved coming home and experimenting with blackberries from making blackberry gin to tweaking my crumble to make it healthier; and somewhere along the line of experimenting I came up with this seasonal recipe for minty blackberry muffins, with courgettes hidden in them!

These can be adapted to be gluten-free by using gluten-free flour. You can make them vegan by replacing the egg with apple sauce. I have made both versions of these muffins and tested them on some willing volunteers and they went down well. I just found that as I didn’t need them to be vegan using an egg instead of apple sauce was easier.

So why not go out and spend some time this weekend picking blackberries and making the most of the bumper crop we are having this year?

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 190g plain white flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp ginger
• 65g golden granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp chopped mint
• 90ml of melted coconut oil
• 90ml of soya milk (or nut)
• 1 egg
• 90g grated courgette
• 75g blackberries

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4. Place 12 muffin cases into a muffin tin (I use silicone muffin cases as I find the muffins rise better and you don’t need to grease them)
2. Place the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, sugar, mint and a pinch of salt in a bowl and stir well
3. In a pan melt the coconut oil and then add the soya milk, mix well. Add to the dry ingredients and stir well. When it has the consistency of very thick batter add the beaten egg and stir until combined well
4. Fold in the blackberries and courgette
5. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, so that they are about ¾ full. Bake for 30 mins, until a skewer comes out clean
6. Cool on a cooling rack