These healthy little muffins are the perfect gluten-free treat for a bready or sweet craving.

Call it a biscuit/ muffin hybrid. Dense in the center with a crispy, crusty outside. Rich and buttery though vegan, but delish with a slice of butter on top!

The recipe for these healthy little muffins was born out of a friend’s request for a gluten free, egg free, whole nut free, snack recipe to feed her one year old infant. Some healthy muffin recipes came to mind, but they often include walnuts or eggs. Modifying those recipes by just swapping out the nuts for another half cup of grated veggies made the end result a little too gooey, so I played around with some different flour combinations and came up with a really tasty new biscuit-like vegan muffin!

Dense centers, with a crispy crust – a satisfying combo!

Chia flour gives the muffins a slightly more earthy flavor, a bit like buckwheat flour and a really nice texture that’s not too dry or mushy. If you don’t have access to chia flour, you can try substituting the 1/2 cup chia with coconut flour, but I found it to be a little more mealy in texture. If you do a whole cup of almond flour instead of using the chia flour, it will turn out a bit more wet in the center. All variations are edible, but this one was definitely the winner.

You’ll find these lightly sweetened biscuit/ muffins are a perfect pairing for a savory dish or to enjoy with a cup of coffee.

Great with a salad, as a light breakfast or along a side of soup. Oh, and my friends’ baby loved them too.

Once you press the dough into the tin, the handmade wrapped papers take on the muffin form. You can even reuse them a couple of times if you make muffins a couple days in a row. The muffins seem to disappear, so you might just want to keep that in mind!

Not to be fancy, but because I didn’t have any ready baking cups on hand, I made mine using rectangles of unbleached parchment paper.

It was actually less time consuming than I imagined. I’m not a crafty gal and don’t have the extra time to fiddle around, but this was quite simple. If you find yourself in a bind, just cut 4 inch wide rows, then cut each row in 2.

To form, fold a piece over in the center of each rectangle and twist it into a cone shape. Once you pack a dollop of dough into the cup and press into the muffin tin they’ll readily take the form.

Stir until you get a nice even mixture. You’ll find it’s thick and easy to spoon into your baking papers.