Vegan Grain and Gluten Free Cinnamon Cranberry Muffins

These grain-free, vegan muffins are adapted from a recipe I found at Healthful Pursuits, the excellent blog of holistic nutritionist Leanne Vogel. These truly are as good as the "real" thing and, as she promised, you do not taste the bean flour one bit.  She uses chickpea flour, while I substituted Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour Blend, which contains garbanzo bean, potato starch, tapioca powder, whole grain sweet white sorghum flour, and fava bean flours. I was really happy with the cinnamon spiced, slightly tangy, fluffy final result. The cinnamon favor almost overwhelms the cranberry, so reduce it by half if you want the tartness of the berries to shine. These are great warm and best the same day you make them.

Vegan Grain-Free Cinnamon Cranberry Muffins

Adapted from Healthful Pursuit's, Vegan Grain-Free Cranberry Sauce Muffins
Makes 18 muffins
Dry:
1½ cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour Mix
¾ cup arrowroot starch
½ cup ground flax seed
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Wet:
14oz can organic whole berry cranberry sauce (approx. 1 1/2 cups) 
¾ cup sucanat (plus extra to sprinkle on top of each muffin)
½ cup plus 1 Tablespoon almond milk (or other nondairy milk)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or other mild oil
1 Tablespoon good vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350F and line your muffin tins. My yield was 18, so I used two muffin tins and baked them off at the same time.

Combine the dry ingredients together with a whisk and set them aside.
Whisk together the wet ingredients then pour them into the dry and fold together until just incorporated. 

Spoon the batter into your prepared muffin tins and sprinkle with sucanat.

Bake for 15-16 minutes, until a toothpick comes out just barely clean. Cool the muffins on racks.