These Apple Hemp Muffins are hot! These whole-grain, vegan muffins by Dreena Burton are easy to make, delicious, tender, and also nut-free and oil-free.
These Apple Hemp Muffins are hot.
Recipe, I mean. Muffins too, but you know, let ’em cool at least a little before taking a bite.
Who would imagine that hemp muffins could be so popular? Readers have loved this recipe for years now, so much that I revised it for Plant-Powered Families.
The original version appeared in Vive le Vegan back in 2004. Yep, I’ve been using hemp seeds in my recipes for many years, before it was a trendy superfood.
When I started using hemp seeds and talking about them in my recipes, I got that “ohhhh, you are that kind of vegan!” sort of reaction.
People didn’t know that hemp seeds were a highly nutritious food – a ‘superfood’ if you will.
No, instead they thought they’d get high from my brownies. Of course they wouldn’t! Because I saved it all for muffins. #kidding #relax!
Jokes aside, it took a few years for the worth of hemp – high in protein, essential fatty acids, and antioxidants – to be recognized in the world of healthy eating. Thank goodness it has, because it has made these virtuous bitty seeds widely available (and accepted)!
For Plant-Powered Families, I freshened up the recipe and made them oil-free. Even without the oil, these muffins are still beautifully moist and tender. To ensure they don’t stick to the muffin liners, try using these parchment muffin liners. They do the trick!
I make these muffins often for school lunches, because they are substantial, healthy, and of course nut-free.
Apple Hemp Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole-grain spelt flour
- 1 cup oat flour
- 2/3 – 3/4 cup hemp seeds
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom can substitute freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 cup unsweetened organic applesauce
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
- 3/4 cup plain or vanilla non-dairy milk
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup raisins or chopped raw banana spears use kitchen shears or knife to cut in small pieces about size of raisins
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients, sifting in the baking powder and baking soda. Stir through until well combined. In another bowl, combine applesauce, maple syrup, non-dairy milk, and vanilla, and mix together. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, and gently fold and mix through, until just combined (do not overmix). Spoon the mixture into a muffin pan lined with cupcake liners (this will fill 12 muffins quite full). Bake for 21-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (See notes above about cooling to help remove from liner.) Makes 12 large muffins.
Have you tried these Vegan Apple Hemp Muffins? What is your favorite way to eat hemp seeds?
Sara says
I am figuring out what to do with the abundance of hemp seeds in my house and stumbled on this gem! GUYS! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU TRY THIS RECIPE OUT! Despite being oil-free, they taste soft, moist and to the CRUMB! I’m trying my best not to eat a lot of them because I wanted to give some away.
In my experiment, I tweaked the recipe according to what I have:
-replaced 1.5 cups spelt flour with 1.25 cup WW pastry flour (as suggested by author)
-plant based milk used is banana milk (1 small banana or 1/2 medium banana in 1-1.5 cups water
-ran out of maple syrup so I used 1/2 cup of date paste (added some water to thin it out)
Came out delicious! It’s not so sweet as well! I’m going to keep this recipe in mind if I’m in a mood to bake again!!! Thank you very much for creating this wonderful recipe!!!
Laurie Haibach says
Just learning to bake with coconut flour, and tapioca flour. Any guesstimates on the amount needed if I use either of these in your hemp muffin recipe? Also, it appears that you are using hulled hemp seeds, correct?
Dreena says
Hi Laurie, both coconut flour and tapioca are very different from spelt and oat flours. Coconut in particular requires much more moisture, it’s very thirsty. I would sub them in here. If you want to use them in a muffin recipe, I’d google recipes using them as a main ingredient. As for hemp seeds, yes, hulled. Enjoy!
Jennifer says
I made these with sunflower seeds instead of hemp seeds and they are delicious!
Dreena says
good to know – thanks for the feedback!
Diane fletcher says
I would love to make these but the hemp seeds that I have are powdered (ground). Could I I use these by perhaps dropping the hemp seed quantity to 1/3 cup and dropping 1/3 cup spelt to compensate?
Dreena says
that’s interesting, I’ve never seen it ground before. Yes, I’d reduce the measure for the hemp seeds, maybe to 1/2 cup. I don’t think you need to adjust the spelt as well, just the hemp. Hope they work out well!
PATRICIA Isaac says
I love these muffins. But how many calories are in one muffin?
Dreena says
Sorry, I don’t have the nutritional information. If you want to compute it, you can enter the recipe information on this site: http://nutritiondata.self.com/
Wendy Todd says
There is a nutritional breakdown for these in Plant Powered Families – 308 calories per muffin.