Easy gluten free chocolate and cherry muffin recipe

These super easy and hassle free gluten free mini cakes are a one bowl mix wonder! Use cherries or raspberries. We’ve also included our dairy free swaps too so everyone can enjoy them.

Easy gluten free chocolate and cherry muffin recipe

Why not treat yourself on National Cherry Day, 16th July, by making a batch of ultra delicious chocolate and cherry muffins? These mini cakes are an adaptation of our original wheat free chocolate and raspberry muffin recipe. All the gluten free ingredients can be mixed in just one bowl and no fancy equipment is required. It’s another hassle free, super speedy baking recipe from our Honeybuns back catalogue. Kids will love helping out too- just swap the boozy cherries for a posh cherry jam instead.

We often get asked if everyday gluten free flour from the supermarket will work instead of the specific flour blends we recommend in our baking books and blogs. In most instances the answer is yes and this is the case with this versatile recipe.

Our favourite go to blend for gluten free cake recipes is made up of sorghum flour (commonly used across Africa and Asia), ground almonds and polenta. Ground almonds really are a hero ingredient; they are packed to the rafters with vitamins and plenty of oil which is important for achieving moist bakes. For more advice on gluten free flours you may want to check out previous blogs.

Flavour, moisture and nutritional benefits are all important factors when we blend flours for specific recipes. For example, our best selling Milk Chocolate Brownie is made with ground almonds which add moisture and natural sweetness – allowing us to use less sugar in the recipe. We also use sorghum flour which helps bind everything together whilst also having promising qualities in relation to the control of blood sugar spikes.

For a deep dive into the health benefits of sorghum I’d recommend Dr Michael Greger’s Podcast on You tube “Is sorghum a healthy grain?”

What gluten free ingredients do I need?

Muffin ingredients:

75g butter, melted. Plus a little bit extra for brushing your muffin pan

200g dark chocolate, chopped

75g light brown sugar

70g almonds ground

60g polenta

40g sorghum flour

10g freeze dried raspberries, crumbled

1 1/2 tbs cocoa powder

1 tsp gluten-free baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 egg

85g Greek yoghurt

5 tbsp orange juice (or apple)

Drunken Cherry ingredients

24 fresh cherries, stones removed

Enough brandy, or your preferred spirit, to pour over your cherries & soak them. I’d say 125ml-250ml.

What if I want to go booze free?

Swap the boozy cherries for ¼ teaspoon of cherry conserve per muffin instead.

More essential recipe info

– This recipe makes 24 mini muffins.

– Baking time is 15 minutes.

– Muffins are best eaten on the day (this should not be too difficult to achieve…) or you can freeze them.

How to make these ultra chocolatey treats

To infuse your cherries with brandy, simply pop your de-stoned cherries in a suitable bowl and add your liquor. Leaving them to steep overnight is ideal or failing that, leave them for at least a couple of hours.

Preheat your oven to 180°C and brush a mini muffin pan (2 x 12 holes or 24 holes are available) and brush with spare melted butter or dairy free alternative.

Melt 125g of the chopped chocolate in a microwave for 1-2 minutes on medium power. Do this in 30 second bursts and stir thoroughly in-between. Take care not to burn it. It’s better to stop before all the chocolate is melted and stir vigorously to get rid of any small lumps. If you get the chocolate too hot it will turn grainy, bitter and horrible.

Alternatively, pop your chocolate in a heatproof bowl atop a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth and avoid getting any water in the chocolate.

Pop the remaining 75g of chopped chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Add the dry ingredients: sugar, ground almonds, polenta, sorghum, crumbled freeze dried raspberries, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and mix in with a fork.

To the same mixing bowl add your wet ingredients: egg, yoghurt, orange juice plus the molten chocolate and butter mixture. Using an electric mixer, blend all the ingredients together thoroughly. This should take around 1 minute.

Scrape down the sides of your bowl and make sure these bits are blended in to the mix too. “Waste not- want not”as my granny was fond of saying.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin pan – half filling each hole. Pop a drunken cherry (or your jam) on the mixture and spoon some more mix on top to almost fill to the hole’s brim.

Bake for 15 minutes, until gently domed and springy to the touch. Leave for 2-3 minutes then turn out onto a wire cooling rack.

Can this recipe be adapted to be dairy free?

Yes, you can easily swap in alternatives to make this dairy free. Use vegan butter such as the one by Flora (link). There are loads of other alternatives in all supermarkets.

Just remember to check that the chocolate and cocoa powder you use is dairy free- again there is lots of choice in the supermarkets. I like Moo Free.

The Greek yoghurt can be swapped for plain vegan yoghurt by the Coconut Collab which is available form Sainsburys.

If you want to make vegan muffins just swap the egg for your vegan egg replacer of choice. We use a combination of apple cider vinegar – 2 tbsp plus 1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate. Other vegan egg alternatives include:

Aqua faba made from chick pea water
Crack’d is a pea protein based egg replacer with good reviews online
Free and Easy contains tapioca and potato flour

All of these are available from The Vegan Kind.

Wheat Free Flour swap

If you would rather simplify things you can swap the ground almonds, polenta and sorghum out and replace with Doves gluten free self raising flour. You can also omit the gluten free baking powder if using self raising flour.

Top vegan cake topping ideas

Melt 125 vegan dark chocolate with 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Please see the microwave or bowl melting information above. This will give you a gorgeous, glossy dark chocolate that can be drizzled over the cooled muffins.
Sprinkle freeze dried raspberry, cranberry or strawberry pieces over the top of your muffins whilst the chocolate drizzle is still wet. Then the fruit pieces will stick.
Dunk whole cherries (preferably with stalks still on) half in molten dark chocolate and top each muffin with one.
Edible flowers from primroses to rose petals and buds would all look stunning sprinkled over the dark chocolate drizzled muffins.

You can stack your muffins up on a cake stand and then drizzle the whole lot with generous amounts of molten chocolate. Then add flowers of your choice for a stunning centre piece dessert. Check out our fun cake decorating ideas here.

If you’d rather swerve baking from scratch entirely (and let’s face it – it’s way too hot for baking at the moment) then do take a look at our beautifully flavoured fruity cakes. We do not have anything specifically cherry flavoured but the following are just as delicious and packed with berries (or lemon).

Comment and share what you thought of this recipe! Be sure to share this delicious recipe with a friend too! Thanks for reading!

– Emma Goss Custard

If you have any questions, do get in touch via this blog in the comments section, or via facebook, email or telephone.

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