Almond Berry Muffins

A great way to use up the leftover pulp from almond and coconut milk!

At Eat Drink Live Well we make an effort to distance ourselves from recipes that involve expensive ingredients or more unusual ingredients, so at first sight it may appear that we’re going against our principles with this dairy, sugar and gluten free muffin recipe.

But we felt we had to post this recipe (it was exclusive to our app) simply because we genuinely use this almond berry muffin recipe so much ourselves. The muffins disappear pretty much as soon as they’re made (particularly if we add chocolate chips instead of blueberries….) and work as a quick snack or even for breakfast on the run.

 

They’re cheap to make because we make up a batch of coconut milk, and a batch of almond milk each week (for smoothies, milkshakes, hot chocolates or simply to enjoy chilled). As a by-product of making both, you’re left with almond meal and coconut, which we dry in the oven and store in the cupboard as flour, thus avoiding the need for expensive flour purchases. Almond and coconut milks are so easy to make that we’d urge you to give it a go; the almond pulp or meal can also be stored in the fridge in a sealed container for a few days and used ‘wet’ in this recipe. If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at our coconut milk and almond milk posts.

So we originally created these tiny cake-like muffins as an easy way to make use of the nutrient-rich almond pulp that’s left after making homemade almond milk; when I first started making alternative milks I found myself with pulp overload – and couldn’t find any recipes that would tell me how to use it. For a while I accumulated it in the freezer and dried in a jar, and then ended up just throwing the pulp guiltily away.  This recipe alleviates my guilt….

The muffins are unbelievably quick to make, and we either make them immediately after making the milk, using the ‘wet’ almond pulp or alternatively we dry the almonds and coconut, grind both (separately) into flour and make up some bulk muffin batches every few weeks.

If you don’t want to make either type of milk, you can substitute ground almonds, and buy coconut flour. If you’re not bothered about gluten, they also work really well with spelt flour as a coconut flour substitute. We add bananas for sweetness along with a little maple syrup instead of refined sugar, and use fresh blueberries – but dark chocolate chips also work well.

 

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