Vegan Month of Food, Day 6: Citrus Blackberry Streusel Muffins

I couldn’t make up my mind. I thought about doing a streusel muffin, and I thought about a lemon blackberry muffin, and then I decided: I CAN HAVE BOTH. You can use really any kind of jam you want, but I used blackberry, because, well, it’s kinda what I have around here. Well, I used it for take one of this recipe, anyway – Mr Pine Nut complained about the seeds, so the second time around I tried it with sweetened mashed nectarines instead. I definitely like the flavour with the blackberries better – so I’m going to stick with that in the future, but use seedless jam.

The thing about the blackberries is that as I was eating the muffins, I kept thinking, “This tastes like something else that I really like.” After I’d eaten the last muffin, it hit me: it’s like those Entenmann raspberry Danishes that I grew up absolutely adoring. The nectarine was good, but it just didn’t have that punch to it.

Line muffin tin with 12 paper liners, or spray a 9×9″ square pan with cooking spray, and heat oven to 400.

The photo of Take One’s blackberry muffins came out blurry, so here’s Take Two in a cake pan with nectarines.

Prepare streusel:
1/4 c brown sugar
1/3 c flour
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 T vegan margarine

Use your fingers to crumble together.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients:
1/2 c white flour
1 1/2 c wheat flour
1/2 c brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 T lemon zest

In another bowl, combine liquid ingredients:
2 flax eggs (2 T ground flaxseed+6 T hot water)
1 c soy milk
1/4 c veggie oil
1/4 c applesauce
1 tsp vanilla

You will also need:
1 1/2 – 2 cups jam or sweetened mashed fruit of choice (for take 2, I used 1 1/2 c mashed nectarines, 1/3 c brown sugar, 2 T instant clear jel)

To assemble muffins, cover bottom of muffin paper with  2 T muffin batter. Add 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of jam, spreading around as much as possible. Top with remaining batter, and sprinkle streusel on last.

To assemble cake, pour roughly half the batter into the pan. Spread the fruit over it, and pour remaining batter over the top slowly. You can do stripes with the batter, or zigzags, or blops. Just let some of the fruit still show through. Sprinkle streusel evenly over the top.

Bake at 400 for 18-20 minutes for muffins, and 40-50 minutes for cake.

For muffins, cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.