The Great Gluten Free Recipe Challenge: dark chocolate and orange muffins

Okay, so somehow whilst breaking my camera and having a mini meltdown  in the kitchen, I managed to grab a couple of snaps of these dark chocolate and orange muffins.

Made as part of The Great Gluten Free Recipe Challenge set by Caleigh over at Gluten Free[k], I had to create a recipe free from gluten, dairy products, almonds, hazlenutes and chestnuts.

And, most importantly, the key ingredient had to be orange.

So, having experimented with several types of muffin over the last few years, I decided that was a natural choice for me!

I wanted to add cocoa powder to the mix,  but we were all out, so here’s what I came up with……….

Dark chocolate and orange muffins

125g (dairy free) margarine

125g sugar

265g plain white flour, I used this Dove’s Farm one

1 tbsp gluten free baking powder

zest of 2 large oranges

2 tbsps three-fruit marmalade – I used Tesco Finest

100g plain dark chocolate

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

150ml soya milk

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6
2. Mix all the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, orange zest, diced dark chocolate (in small-ish chunks) and baking powder in a mixing bowl.
3. Melt the margarine and marmalade together in the microwave
4. Add the margarine and marmalade, vanilla essence, soya milk and two beaten eggs to the dry mixture
5. Mix thoroughly – the mixture will be quite wet, but this is what makes the muffins so tasty!]
6. Spoon (or ladel!) into muffin cases, and bake for 25 minutes until golden brown

Visit Gluten Free[k]’s blog for a round up of the other orange-inspired recipes!