La Dolce Vegan Challenge, Day 1: Wolffie's Banana Blueberry Muffins

Well boys and girls, here we are on Day One of the Vegan Culinary Institute's 'La Dolce Vegan Challenge' - isn't it exciting?!

I decided, in honour of the first recipe, to splash out and buy the blueberries, for an authentic start. Well, sort of. I omitted the granulated sugar in favour of palm sugar (non-refined, more subtle flavour - a bit caramelly), to make the muffins a bit more breakfast-friendly. Maple syrup would probably have worked nicely too as a substitute, but it's about 10 times the price. Instead of adding it to the dry ingredients, I just put it on with the wet instead - it's not really wet, but it is sticky!

Strangely, having consumed many sweets made with palm sugar (t'other half uses it a lot, especially in his favourite black rice pudding), this was the first time I've ever actually cooked with it. It comes in little cakes, which are rather solid. My blender sounded like it was trying to grind a golf ball. In hindsight I should have dissolved it first in some warmed soya milk - in fact I think that was my original plan, but after a long day at work (12-8, got in at 8.30, ate some dinner, sat for 5 mins, got up and made muffins) my gameplan dribbled out of my ears somewhere on the bike ride home.

For some reason my muffins rose spectacularly, like rocky outcrops with exploded blueberry rivers. More scone-y than muffin-y in shape. Flavour and texture-wise they were very good, though I under-palm sugared them a bit, and IMHO they could stand a bit more banana. But then I always think things could stand more banana. I also had to add a bit more soya milk, because the mixture became so solid once I started combining the wet and dry ingredients that I was literally unable to mix them together. As a result the batter probably got rather more glutinous and stretchy than it ought, but they certainly weren't tough.

Tomorrow: No Salt Shaker - but on what... (Actually, I'm having some people round for dinner tomorrow, so I'm going to cheat a bit and get a few more of this week's recipes ticked off the list while I'm at it! For continuity, though, I will blog about each recipe on the proper day.)