Cranberry Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Spice Muffins

So... I shared these pumpkin molasses muffins the other week and they sure made the rounds since! I've seen so many remakes and so happy to hear people are enjoying them. My friend Natalie @ Feasting on Fruit even made them a part of a video because she liked them so (She's the sweetest! And little does she know I've actually been enjoying one of her recipes very much this evening... alongside muffins, of course ;) ). And most importantly, I've been baking them batch after batch myself since I discovered the magical formula for making the lightest and fluffiest muffins, that incidentally happen to be gluten-free, dairy-free, eggless, refined sugar-free, oil-free, gum-free, nut-free and more "free" if you know what I mean... But...

...I guess they weren't "free" enough because I've since gotten so many requests for an oat-free version. So I began to ponder how to turn these fluffy muffins oat-free too. When I came up with that recipe I felt like the oats were an essential component because they are what added the actual fluffy and light element, and they are what allowed these muffins to be made without any gums or extra binders (trying to keep things simple where possible these days)... So what to do when you take out the important part of the recipe...?

The answer was actually much simpler than you're probably imagining. I only switched 1 key ingredient and that did the trick. You see, I think the fluffiness comes from the coarse flour produced by grinding down the oat flakes (in combination with the rice flour & starch). So, I traded one flake for another: enter rice flakes! I used to use quinoa flakes as an oat substitute ages ago when I couldn't consume any oats myself, so that came to mind... I dug around my cupboard and couldn't find any though -- it's been a while! But I did find a random bag of rice flakes somewhere in the back of my pantry that I picked up once on sale... and gave it a go. Here's what I used:

You don't have to go with this specific brand or anything, though I do love Eden's quality and use their stuff almost daily for one thing or another. This particular porridge can be bought on Amazon, but you can honestly go with any rice flakes you can find and likely even quinoa flakes in this and that should work.

There's only one extra tiny step you should be aware of in this recipe as compared to the oaty version, and that is that the rice flakes are a lot tougher. The oats I was using were paper thin and soft and required pretty much no cooking. The rice flakes were tough and crunchy. So once everything is blended together in the recipe, you have to let the mixture sit for a bit to absorb some moisture into those flakes (a good time to start pre-heating the oven). Other than that, the rice flakes work a treat. You can detect a bit of the flakes in the muffin's texture by the way, but it actually added to the experience for me. That's the only notable difference I spotted.

And of course if you're an oat lover, then go ahead and just use oats in these muffins instead -- the original will always be special to me :)

Working on a grain-free version next ;)

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Spice Muffins

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★★★★★ 4.7 from 3 reviews

• Author: Audrey @ Unconventional Baker
• Prep Time: 25 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
• Yield: 8 large muffins
• Category: Muffins
• Method: Baked
• Cuisine: Dessert

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Description

Light, fluffy gluten-free pumpkin spice muffins with cranberry and chocolate in every bite. Dairy-free.

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Ingredients

Dry:

• 1 ½ cups rice flakes (or gf quick oats) (+ a bit more for sprinkling on top)
• 2 tbsp tapioca starch
• ¼ cup brown rice flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder (gluten-free!)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin spice (see notes for alternative)
• dash of salt

Wet:

• ¾ cup pumpkin puree
• ¾ cup maple syrup (or agave, coconut nectar, brown rice syrup, etc.)
• ½ cup light coconut milk (the kind that comes in a can -- stir it well first)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Add-Ins:

• 1 cup cranberries (or raisins, chopped dates, dried cherries, etc.)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (or pumpkin seeds, nuts, etc.)

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Instructions

1. Process all dry ingredients into a flour in a food processor into a coarse flour. Add in wet ingredients and process to combine. Add in your add-ins and pulse a few times to mix them in.
2. Leave the mixture to sit for about 20 minutes while pre-heating the oven (skip this step is using quick oats).
3. Preheat oven to 350F. Oil a 12-cup muffin pan (just 8 of the cups if making 8) and set aside (or use liners or a good non-stick pan instead of oiling).
4. Spoon batter into 8 muffin cups, topping it up high until you run out of batter (unless you're doing smaller muffins, in which case divide evenly between the 12 cups). Sprinkle with extra pumpkin rice flakes (or oats, if using).
5. Bake in a preheated oven for approximately 1 hour (if making 12 smaller muffins, the baking time will decrease, so keep an eye out and test with a skewer until it comes out try to see if they're done). Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Notes

*If you don't have pumpkin spice, just use the following: ½ teaspoon more cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, ⅛ teaspoon cloves and ⅛ teaspoon allspice.