Wacky Orange Spiced Muffins

This recipe is based on the idea of the “Wacky Cake”. The Wacky Cake is a cake recipe that was the result of scarce ingredients during the Great Depression. The cake is not supposed to have milk or eggs, as those were scarce ingredients or were considered expensive. This makes it great for my friends who are dairy free and egg free, but what about the gluten? This is where I come in and play in my kitchen lab. What makes this cake fluffy is actually the chemical reaction between an acid and base. In our case, it’s the apple cider vinegar and the baking powder. It really was clever of our grandmas in the 1920s to come up with this technique. What I have done to the traditional wacky cake is to make it a cleaned up orange spiced muffin. Perfect for the holidays when you have people with allergies come over. This muffin is top 8 allergen free! Enjoy!

Wacky Orange Spiced Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:

Finished Yummies!

1 1/2 cups all purpose gluten free flour (We use Namaste Organic Perfect Flour Blend)
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
1/3 cup of raw unrefined organic sugar of your choice. (cane, maple, etc…)
1/8 tsp of fine pink sea salt or your favorite salt
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 tsp fresh orange zest
1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
5 TBS organic vegetable oil
1 cup of cold orange juice

Optional: 6-12 orange segments for garnish

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F
Sift the following dry ingredients (flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder) in to a bowl.
After sifting, create 2 wells in the dry mix.
In another bowl make the orange juice mixture, mix the orange juice, zest, vinegar and sugar.
Take the bowl with the dry mixture and the first well gets the oil.
As you are pouring the orange juice mixture into the 2nd well, keep mixing everything in.
Once everything is mixed in, let it sit for 5min and the dough will rise.
Before the oven…
When the dough rises, scoop and place in a lined muffin tin. (Make sure you don’t mix after the rising! Just scoop the dough into the muffin tin please.)
OPTIONAL: I like to bake it with an orange segment as garnish for an extra zing!
Bake for 20-30min, I recommend that you take a toothpick and test the readiness. You will know when the muffin is ready when you can pull the toothpick out cleanly.
Once done, turn off the oven and let the muffins cool on a rack for 10min.