Recipe: gluten-free pumpkin muffins at Bunner’s that taste every bit as good as the butter-jacked counterparts

PREP TIME: 15 minutes BAKE TIME: 18 minutes Serves 12

PUMPKIN MUFFINS

1¾ cup Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose gluten-free flour 1¼ cup evaporated cane juice 1 tbsp baking powder 1 tbsp ground cinnamon 1 tbsp ground ginger ½ tsp xanthan gum ¼ tsp sea salt 1 cup pumpkin purée ½ cup rice milk ½ cup canola oil 2 tbsp molasses 1 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400º F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin cups. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Stir to mix. Whisk wet ingredients in another bowl. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.

2. Fill each cup until ⅔ full. Bake in centre of preheated oven for 18 to 22 minutes until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

TIP For vegan baking especially, quality ingredients are essential. Buy organic sugar and the best vanilla you can afford. Wittig uses Nielsen-Massey.

ASHLEY WITTIG BUNNER’S At Bunner’s, her Junction bakery, Ashley Wittig creates gluten-free vegan treats that taste just as good as the butter-jacked versions. She sticks to a straightforward process of substitution: canola oil instead of butter, chickpeas and brown rice flour instead of wheat and, usually, applesauce instead of eggs. These spicy muffins prove that pumpkin is an equally tasty binding agent, keeping the consistency miraculously moist, dense and light all at the same time. More than that, they lay waste to the notion that ethical eating tastes as bland as it sounds.

Recipes developed by Victoria Walsh. Recipe photography by Ryan Szulc. Portrait photography by Raina and Wilson. Illustrations by Aleksandar Janicijevic. Interviews by Denise Balkissoon, Ariel Brewster, Andrew D’Cruz, Jennifer Goldberg, Matthew Hague, Claire Hastings, Bronwen Jervis and Simone Olivero.