Jae Steele’s blueberry buckwheat muffins are the inspiration for these treats.  Looking at her recipe, I suspect that Rebecca Wood may be her inspiration for those treats.  Regardless of the origin, the method amounts to grinding well-soaked whole grains with water to yield a batter.  The whole thing comes together in the blender in under 10 minutes and then a few quick folds of the fruit in a large bowl and off to the oven.  Simplicity itself and the result is a moist muffin with loads of fruity flavour alongside a nice nutty taste from the millet.

Yield: 20 muffins

What you need:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 3/4 cup millet
• 2 cups boiled water, still hot
• 1/3 cup golden flax
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup rice milk (or other non-dairy milk)
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil
• zest of 1/2 an orange (only if you have organic orange, otherwise omit)
• 2-3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (the juice and pulp of 1/2 a small orange)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups frozen strawberry pieces (chop the strawberries into pieces about the size of raisins or a bit bigger, and don’t defrost them before adding to the batter)

What you do :

1. Preheat oven to 375F and grease/flour two muffin pans, or line them with paper cups (but be advised the muffins will stick to paper liners).
2. Combine the quinoa and millet in a small bowl, pour the boiled water over them, cover and let sit overnight or for several hours.
3. Pour the quinoa, millet and soaking water into a blender. Add the flax, rice milk, sunflower oil, zest, juice, vanilla extract, ginger (if using) and salt.  Process several minutes until you get a smooth and thickish batter and all the quinoa and millet are broken down.
4. Add the baking powder and baking soda and give it another quick whirl, to mix through.
5. Pour the mixture, which will be bubbling and rising, into a large bowl. Expect it to be a little thinner than the muffin batters you might be used to.  Don’t worry, the flax will thicken it and it will be fine as it cooks up.
6. Fold in the frozen strawberry pieces.
7. Fill the muffin cups to the top and pop them in the oven. Any empty openings can be filled with a couple of centimeters of water before doing that (to maintain humidity in the oven, ‘’standing-in’’ for any ‘’missing’’ muffins).
8. Bake for 25 minutes. If you’re using a mini-muffin pan rather than full-sized cups, then it’ll be 23 minutes or so.  Remove from oven and let cool about ten minutes before taking the muffins out of the pans and transferring them to wire racks

Variations :

• Use lime zest and juice instead of orange;
• Replace the frozen strawberries with frozen raspberries and omit the citrus altogether;
• Omit the strawberries, use lime zest and juice instead of orange (or pineapple juice and no zest), use coconut milk instead of rice milk, virgin coconut oil instead of sunflower and fold a cup of shredded coconut or coconut flakes into the batter at the end.