Vegan Chocolate Orange Muffins, light and fluffy, sumptuous and pillowy, rich and indulgent – everything we are told vegan food is not!
These gorgeous double chocolate cupcakes make me gasp every time I take a batch out of the oven.
I’m still amazed that vegan cakes rise just as much as egg-based cakes do!
Vegan baking has been one of the biggest surprises on my vegan journey. Once I realised that I could still bake and share all the cakes and pastries I have in my huge repertoire everything fell into place.
I have drawers full of cookie cutters, baking trays, cake tins and muffin pans and recipes to fill each of them coming soon to a blog near you 😉
How To Make Vegan Muffins
So – these beauties…”What’s the secret of their fluffy deliciousness?” I hear you cry!
I’m not really sure, to be honest. I mean, I know what I put in them, but I don’t know why it works – any more than I knew why an egg did it!
I’m doubting that the rise I got in my pre-vegan baking days was anything to do with the eggs!
The raising agent in these vegan chocolate muffins is baking powder – just as it was before! I’ve replaced the butter with sunflower oil and the dairy milk with almond milk and that’s it.
Magic.
It’s the only explanation.
Unless you have a better one!
And here they are in their finery, all prettied up and ready for afternoon tea. I haven’t covered them with vegan buttercream because I wanted their supreme chocolatey-ness to shine!
I flavoured my vegan chocolate muffins with tangerine marmalade because that is what I had to hand.
For an even deeper orange taste use good Seville orange marmalade and prepare to have your socks blown off!
It’s Seville season right now and I’ll be bubbling my marmalade towards the end of this week – a little bit of sunshine at the end of January is a very good thing! It also means I can make another batch of muffins – hoorah!
Here’s a shot of one of them broken open to reveal the fluffiness inside – just in case you don’t believe me!
Serving Suggestions and Ingredient Tweaks
Serve these vegan chocolate orange muffins warm, with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream or cold. Dust them with a little icing sugar and top with a slice of crystallised orange if you’re feeling fancy.
This is a very versatile basic muffin recipe so fiddle with it a bit if the mood takes you – you could leave the chocolate chips out or replace them with chopped nuts or dried cherries. If you make them do share them over on Instagram and tag me at ThinlySpread – I love seeing what you all do with my recipes!
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Chocolate Orange Muffins
Ingredients
- 200 g self raising flour
- 25 g cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 100 g soft light brown sugar
- pinch salt
- 75 g vegan chocolate chips
- 100 ml sunflower oil
- 300 ml plant milk soya and almond work well here
- 2 tbsp orange marmalade
- grated zest of one tangerine or half an orange
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C/350F, line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
- Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into a large mixing bowl
- Stir in the sugar, salt, chocolate chips and orange zest
- Whisk together the oil, milk and marmalade
- Make a well in the flour mix and pour in the liquid, stir well to combine and pour into the muffin cases.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until risen. If you poke them with a skewer it should come out clean (unless you hit a chocolate chip - poke them in a couple of places to be sure!)
- Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
If you like the sound of these Chocolate Orange Muffins why not pin them for later?
Omg these were so amazing! I made a few substitutions for what I had on hand – 1/2 coconut oil & 1/2 walnut oil for the sunflower oil, oat milk for the almond milk and I added chopped walnuts. Wow so fluffy and the chocolate orange combo is out of this world!
Yay! I’m so pleased! I really do think chocolate and orange are a flavour marriage made in heaven. Your adaptations sound perfect…oh how I LOVE walnuts! X
Thanks very much for this recipe. Made it with a few substitutions (olive oil instead of sunflower, and cacao nibs for chocolate chips), but they came out sublimely. Soft, moist, melt-in-mouth, flavoursome and above all, filling. I topped mine with some coconut yoghurt and cashew nuts, while the others in my household ate it practically straight out of the oven (!)
I’m delighted! I love the sound of coconut yoghurt and cashews on top – inspired! 🙂
I always use a banana instead of egg. Soya walnuts as well.
Banana works really well, unfortunately I loathe the taste! I’m not sure what you mean by soya walnuts though, I’m intrigued!