Gluten and Dairy Free Raspberry Choc Chip Polenta Muffins

Phew, thats a long title! I just made these lovelies, its an adapted recipe, and it uses rapeseed oil. In last months 'Delicious' magazine there is a whole article about this lovely oil from Farrington Oils Limited, so I bought a bottle from Sainsburys and I'm very happy with it. I have roasted veg, roasted potatoes, fried courgettes, made salad dressing and baked with it, all with success. It's a lovely yellow colour, slightly nutty in flavour and quite thick like olive oil. The yellow colour makes your roasties or cakes a great colour too.

Anyway, the recipe in the magazine was for polenta and blueberry cakes, but I didn't have those, so I made mine with raspberries. I didn't have any apple juice either....and of course had to use gluten free flour, but after a few changes they came out lovely! This recipe makes enough mix for a 12 hole muffin tin. These are not super sweet muffins, the polenta gives them a crunchy savory edge.

mellow yellow rapeseed oil 125ml
orange juice 125ml
vanilla extract 1tsp
large free range eggs 2
golden caster sugar 150gms
polenta 60gms
dove farm gluten free flour 140gms
baking powder 1tsp
raspberries 150gms
green and blacks dark chocolate 50gms

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C/Fan 160 or gas mark 4. Line your muffin tin with muffin cases, or I used some silicone ones I got from Habitat. Chop your chocolate up into chips. Wisk your eggs, sugar for five minutes till pale and thick. Next mix in the oil and orange juice. Now sift in your flour, polenta and baking powder, and fold in, along with the choc chips.

Divide this mixture between your cases, then plop on the raspberries. Some will sink, don't worry about this. Cook for 25-30 minutes till the tops are golden brown. If you try to skewer test these, you made hit a raspberry so don't be fooled.

Once done, cool in the tin a bit and then pop out onto a wire rack to cool down. You can eat them warm, give them 10 mins though for the raspberries to not be like lava inside. They will also keep for 5 days in a cake tin.

The silicone bun cases are brilliant, as I'm rather messy with my mix, and this leads to messy bun cases with drips down the side. The silicone ones shrug off any drips with ease, and then you can just dishwasher them for next time. I got mine from Habitat, but you can get silicone bun cases and muffin cases on Ebay now very cheaply. www.cookshops.com have some nice ones too. Just make sure they are a good quality food grade silicone.