At the Season’s Eatings kitchen, we received a sample of Creative Nature’s Chia and Mulberry muffin mix, so decided to bake it with the addition of our own raspberry and chia frosting.

This Creative Nature muffin mix is organic, gluten-free, dairy free, nut free and soya free. The packet instructions are straight forward and easy to follow – just mix with butter (or dairy free spread), eggs and vanilla extract and bake. We follow no specific diet nor have any dietary requirements, so opted for butter in both the muffins and in our frosting. The frosting we made uses our organic, homemade raspberry jam. We do not sieve it to remove the seeds as we have no qualms with seeds chez Season’s Eatings, but by all means use a seedless jam if you prefer

After following the packet instructions, we found the muffins a little drier than we had hoped for, so lots of frosting is definitely recommended; however this is more a generic problem for gluten-free products that use rice flour. The use of chia seeds and mulberries does give an interesting bite to the muffins, and we agree that this mix does deserve it’s great taste award. The full recipe is below.

Preparation time: 5 minutes – to weigh out ingredients

Cooking time: 25 minutes (according to packet instructions)

Ingredients:

• 400g pack of Creative Nature Chia and Mulberry muffin mix;
• 4 eggs
• 150g butter (or dairy-free spread)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the frosting

• 150g butter
• 450g icing sugar
• 2 tbsp raspberry jam (homemade) + extra
• handful of chia seeds

Recipe:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150ºC. Fill a muffin tin with cases.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the 4 eggs, Creative Nature Chia and Mulberry muffin mix, butter and vanilla extract until well combined. Split between the 12 muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes.  
3. Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.
4. For the frosting, ensure the butter is softened (i.e. at room temperature, not straight from the fridge), beat together with the icing sugar. It will be quite thick at this point. Add the raspberry jam, which will introduce colour, flavour and loosen up the frosting, and beat together again.
5. Using a small knife, cut out a small hollow in each muffin, and carefully refill this hole with raspberry jam.
6. Transfer the icing to a piping bag and pipe in any design you prefer. As you’ll notice, our piping skills are not the greatest, but it is as much about flavour so don’t judge us too harshly please. We topped with a few chia seeds and edible gold stars to finish before serving.